


Bookwyrm knight and dragon flight, or how to sow dragon's teeth

by Davechicken, UlsPi



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Human, Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Aziraphale is "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" (Good Omens), Crowley is Bad at Flirting (Good Omens), Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), Crowley is a Sweetheart (Good Omens), Everything Is Better With Dragons, Like really dragons are awesome why wouldn't you love them, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protective Crowley, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Unless you had pyrophobia I guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:35:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23475568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken, https://archiveofourown.org/users/UlsPi/pseuds/UlsPi
Summary: Aziraphale is a disgrace to his family having lost his dragon.Crowley is a dragon whisperer who helps the common people tame feral dragons who lost their riders.They meet when Aziraphale is sent on a mission to bring Crowley to the palace to tame the king's dragon.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Pepper & Adam Young (Good Omens)
Comments: 112
Kudos: 115





	1. A bookwyrm and a wyrm

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! We love kudos and comments and we cannot lie.  
> The main credit goes to @davechicken for coming up with the stupendous idea!

Aziraphale was not hiding, not really. It was simply that the day to day bustle of the royal court held little interest to him, and he was certain his studies into dragon lore would contribute more to the kingdom. Hence, he was holed away in the best natural light he could find, surrounded by the meagre scraps of knowledge that had escaped the fire some generations ago. 

They'd lost so much! So much knowledge. And although his peers, tutors, siblings and everyone around him told him he was wasting his time looking up old details, and that the active knowledge of bonded dragon-riders was more than sufficient, he couldn't help himself. 

His finger ran alongside the text, as he scoured for new scraps of information. He had his own journal he used to compile them all, with pages dedicated to diet, behaviour, sub-species... little things he'd gleamed here and there. He leafed past the species to get to the page for recording new information on cockatrices (which were not actually anything but a nuisance, but were likely a genetic cousin). Hydra (multiple-headed, bad tempered), Lindworm (two legs, no wings), Kirin (far too many different reports to put a nail in it)... oh. Ryu. He swallowed past a lump in his throat, and hastily slammed the journal shut and under another book as he heard approaching footsteps. Gather yourself!

The steps drew closer and stopped right next to Aziraphale. 

"Brother!" Gabriel announced his arrival and apparent inability to remember his brother's name. "Aziraphale!" He added triumphantly. "How have you been, you bookworm?" 

Gabriel was smiling, but then, he smiled all the time, that jovial, careless, heroic smile that held no humour or benevolence other than some required charity.

"...quite well, thank you," Aziraphale replied, casually trying to conceal his reading material, not wanting the Judging Eyes to appear again. Gabriel never checked in on him. And never - if he did - was he without an ulterior motive. Or twelve. "Ah, and yourself?"

"Ah, brilliant, absolutely brilliant! You know me, brother, always brilliant." It was difficult to say whether Gabriel intended to be insulting or it just came to him naturally, to assure his infinite superiority over everyone and his brother. "I have a... Mission for you, Aziraphale. Do you have a moment for me?" As if Aziraphale had had any chance to refuse Gabriel's request.

There was a distinct solidifying of expression, so the smile on Aziraphale's face remained, but any sincerity behind it waned. "Yes?"

"Well, as you know," Gabriel pulled himself a chair, making, of course as much noise as one could possibly manage and remaining unaware of it. "As you know," he repeated and clasped his hands with excitement. "There have been some... Commoners who managed to tame the feral dragons who'd lost their riders. "Completely impossible of course, but you know the simple folk..." Gabriel trailed off, obviously he had no idea what or who were the people outside the palace gates. "Believe... All sorts of things. They even claim, listen here, that there is a man... What was his name?" Gabriel snapped his fingers. "Crowley! He's allegedly the master of taming the feral dragons and the commoners up north now ride dragons, as if they had any right to form a bond! Can you imagine?" Gabriel must have thought he was utterly delightful.

"Ah, yes." Because of course dragons could never rebond. Once feral, that was 'it'. That was the most important thing Aziraphale had ever, ever been taught. Only noble people, and never rebond. Dragons were far too powerful for the rabble. He twitched, and schooled his face further. 

"And you want me to... research how?"

"I understand you've done enough research. It's time you go out there and prove yourself the fierce, lethal war machine that you were..." Gabriel looked over Aziraphale's form. "Meant to be. It will be good for you. Fresh air. Adventures. You'll have all the necessary papers and means. Of course we can't give you another dragon, you know." Gabriel laughed. It had completely escaped him that he still had to announce what the mission was.

"Er." 'Fierce, lethal war machine' he had never been. Even when he had his dragon. He ruffled his shoulders up like a peacock, and shook his head. "I rather think it would be better if - ah - someone still in possession of their dragon were to go? I mean, if they truly do have dragons, then--" Actually, then there'd be a blood-bath, wouldn't there? Not that he was at all able to face down someone who did have one, and didn't want to deal with him. And if they were able to tame them, then that would lend weight to his theories, and--- his head bounced between the stable, safe, academic place here, and the chance to possibly be near dragons again without everyone stepping back from him as he tried to pretend he was still welcome...

"You will, at least, give me a horse?"

"Oh, sure! Will give ten, if you want. Or would you like a carriage? Or a cart? A wagon!" Gabriel felt he was so benevolent, so noble, his entire face beamed making his smile even more insincere. "You will have anything you want to complete this mission. Oh my... I haven't explained it yet, have I?" For the first time in his life Gabriel managed to have a doubt about something.

"...no, but I assumed I was to go and... uncover the truth, and release dragons, or use the information, somehow?" If he could urge policy by underhanded means, he would. Aziraphale smiled as widely as he could force his reluctant lips. "And just one sturdy horse and saddlebags, with the funds to take lodgings, will be more than sufficient."

"What truth are you talking about, brother?" Gabriel was confused and slightly furious. "There are commoners claiming to have tamed the dragons of the perished nobles. This is... Unthinkable! Yet we would want to make it a lesson. You are to find that... Crowley. You are to bring him alive and well into the palace, and then he'll have to tame the king dragon. He'll fail, die in fire and flames and then nobody would dare ever question our divine right to bond with dragons. Imagine, what the world would be like if any peasant, any... Any merchant... Would ride a dragon! It would be like putting a crown on everyone's head! We don't put crowns on everyone's head even within the family, do we?" Gabriel smirked and stood up. "This is just the quest for you. Your knowledge will be of great help, I have no doubt... But I never do!" Gabriel beamed, tapped Aziraphale's shoulder harder than it was necessary to express fondness and left.

Aziraphale blinked after him, mouth slack. "...so, not even a clue as to where to go? Of course not... silly of me to think so." Gabriel just left the fine details to everyone else, didn't he. Well. Maybe this Crowley person would teach them a lesson, though taming the late king's dragon was... not exactly within anyone's remit. At all. 

He looked mournfully at the books, then decided no one would even notice they were gone, and scooped them all up. He would have room for them on his horse, most assuredly.

***

_ Several years earlier _

"See, girl, dragons don't look like people, but neither do horses or cows or dogs or cats or... Or dolphins! But we're all the same in that we require food, water and above all, care and acceptance. Now, they, up there, think that a grieving dragon is wild and uncontrollable, and they have their point! But! My point is - the dolphins. And horses. And suchlike. We rely on them... Well, not on dolphins, which is a pity... But we rely on our animals to be our partners, in labour, in work. They give us the strength and insight we lack. So... Each animal grieves in their own way, but dragons, they are... They are the size of... They are damn big! So we might be thick enough to ignore a horse's grief, but we can't possibly ignore a large flying lizard! So, how do you calm a horse in distress? You give it time and space and you try to come closer and bring it food it likes and show it that you need it and respect it. It's even more so with dragons. This big bad dragon flies in and weeps and is distressed... You know what works? What makes it easier than a horse? You talk to them! And tell them you mean no harm and want to listen to them... Do I make any sense?"

"Not 'girl'," she huffed, slightly. "Pepper. Or Pep." She did not like being reduced down to 'girl'. Even if she was one. It was sexist, and she did not like it, even if he was teaching her useful things. (She would also have objected to boys being called 'boy'. Names were important.)

"But do they understand what you are saying? Does it matter what you say? Adam's dog understands, but then Newt's cat doesn't sit when you tell it to."

To be completely honest, Crowley had been lucky in his guess that Pepper was a girl. He had been known to call eighty-year-old women "boys" and had once called Adam, who was Pepper's peer and friend, "old man".

Crowley was tall, lanky, had short auburn hair and wickedly weird yellow eyes with slit pupils which started a rumour that Crowley was some sort of a bastard child of a dragon and a witch. Crowley didn't try to disprove those rumours. On the contrary, he rather enjoyed them and would sometimes use them to his advantage.

"Pepper... Alright. I'll remember. I will. I'll write it down!" He decided. "It does matter what you say and how you say it. You... You walk slowly and you look at them and acknowledge them... I'll bow to no human, g... Pepper, but I will bow to a dragon, because... Because it's damn awesome! As for cats..." He winced. "They are more difficult to negotiate with than dragons. Mostly because they are cute and use it... Personally, I don't find them cute!" A cat rubbed its bum against Crowley's boot and he cooed before snapping back and remembering himself. "Right. Understand?"

"Sort of. Like babies. Or old people. You talk to them and they understand your tone and what you mean, even if they don't get your words." She was a quick study, usually. The arms folded across her chest remained in place. Even if the world didn't know it, she was constantly ready to fight it. "So what do they want? And why are they sad anyway? Don't the noble people try to treat them like slaves? Why aren't they happy to run away and be free? Sounds more fun to me."

"I told you, there is a deep connection between us and other creatures we live with... Or I tried to tell you that. Maybe I failed. With dragons this connection is... Alright, look here. A dragon and a human see each other, truly see, the good bits and the bits that are just... Eugh. Something just clicks. Works. It never happened to me, mind you, but I can be a friend to a dragon and not exactly it's companion. 

"Now about the nobles. Dragons are not treated badly, but they are treated... And a person they bond with, that person cares about them, not just... Treats them one way or another. It's a pleasure to be taken care of, to be seen and... And accepted. When a rider dies, their dragon grieves for that bond. But it does so, because nobody else had even seen it like its rider."

The young girl bit her lip, considering, working through all the information. When she was sure she had digested it, she nodded sagely. "Okay. That's good. I wouldn't want them to be hurt. But what then? Do they ever find someone else?"

"See, they don't need to." Crowley smiled as if he had known more than he was saying, and of course he did. "We don't always fall in love, not all our friends are the best ones. Yet, we can have fun with them too. We can help them and rely on them to help us without insisting on the absolute commitment. You can ride a dragon you're not bonded with. I rode them, as you saw, and I haven't bonded with a single one... Maybe I'm indeed cursed..." It was Crowley's turn to bite his lip.

"...can other people ride them?" As in, 'me', was Pepper's obvious thought. Which she had been trying very hard not to say, because maybe it was rude. It was rare she held back on things for that, but dragons were cool, and she totally did not want to mess up this.

"Other as in not bonded?" Crowley asked.

"And... like... not you?"

"Yes to both, g... Pepper. The only difference as far as I could tell is that the dragon you're bonded with, you are... You are more of yourself, by all accounts. You enhance each other, see? So, I'm going to teach you all of this and you're gonna be great! Deal?"

Her heels clipped together. "Yessir!"

"Call me "sir" again, and you'll remain "girl" for the rest of your life."

She grinned. "So, what then?"

"Get your things and be ready at nightfall. We go dragonwatching... You can bring Adam. And you'll call me Crowley."

"I'll be back... Crowley." And - without any further niceties - she was bounding off to find her best friend.

***

_ Present day _

"Crowley! CROWLEY!" Pepper ran up, eyes wide as she looked madly for him.

Crowley was napping under a large apple tree and made a noise that Pepper interpreted as the sign he was awake enough to listen to her.

"They're coming! I mean - someone is coming! I mean - you're in *danger*!"

"What the everloving fuck, Pepper?" Crowley sat up rubbing his eyes. "Who's coming? Why are they coming? Why am I, of all people, in danger?"

"Dragons! I mean, that's why they're coming." She stopped short, hands on her hips. "Why else? They said there's someone asking after you, in the villages nearby! We need to fight back!"

"How do you propose to fight questions?" Crowley extended his arm and wiggled his fingers. Pepper rolled her eyes and offered him a hand.

"No, I mean - the noble... guy... who is asking them. He hasn't said what he wants to do but it can't be good. It's the patriarchy."

Crowley got up, with Pepper's unnecessary help. "So what? Pepper, I am a guy too. Used to be. Or still am. Don't know... Nevermind. So, he's asking questions, so he's noble... What questions we should be asking?"

"...well." Her brow creased. "What if they want to stop you?"

"No. Which noble? There are some among them who are indeed noble. Of heart."

"...he... had... pale hair? They said his name, but it was... long." Damn. Pepper had been so fired up with the warning that she had run right over. "Az.... Azazer....Phil?"

"That makes so little sense I believe it's a noble... So far South... Interesting..." Crowley messed up his hair. "Alright, you and Adam, be ready to go. Warn your families and... The whole village. If he's as dangerous as you think, you're to take all but Bentley to Beelzebub and wait for me. Savvy? Pepper, I don't like it, you made me all worried. I haven't been worried in years!" He raised his hands dramatically.

"Pull yourself together." She said it with a firm huff, and an upturned nose. With the confidence only a young child could muster. "You can do anything. He's just a noble. They all have people to wipe their bottoms."

"That's far too much detail for my liking... ngk! Ok, go, evacuate... Why evacuate? Whatever. I trust your judgement."

Far too old for her years, the young girl stretched tall under the responsibility. "Alright. We will be waiting for you. Don't do dumb things." She turned and ran - as quickly as she'd come - off to do as he'd said.

  
  


***

  
  


He had ridden for days. He'd stayed in inns that made him fear for his digestive tract, long term, and his skin for the short term. But it wasn't forever, he told himself, as he pushed up into the stirrups to give his rump a rest. It had been much more comfortable on a dragon, and it had also been a while, so he was glad there were long stretches where no one saw how much he winced when he was riding along, and he could hide it on the dismount. 

As he rode into the next little hamlet, he was confused why there weren't many - any? People? Did working people go all away at once for things? How did he not know? They hadn't anywhere else. 

Aziraphale pulled his horse to a halt, and pursed his lips. "Hello? Hello? Is there anyone here?"

"Up here, people!" Yelled Crowley from the verge of a cliff he had perched himself on. It was rather ridiculous, of course, because he was perfectly visible. He had sat there to be perfectly visible!

Oh, well, there was someone. At least one. And he'd spoken to others, so that meant... well, nothing, really. He wriggled his rump, then tugged the reins to go towards the man. Quite why he was up there... "Hello?" he called out, when he got closer.

"Yes, stop yelling, for fuck's sake!" Crowley waved. "The horse hasn't been kind to you, has it?" He smirked. He couldn't see well because of the tinted glasses Pepper's mother had made him "in case of emergency" so as he couldn't be recognized by his eyes.

"Well - pardon me - but you are rather high up," he replied, pouting very slightly. "And I was afraid you had not heard me. I have ridden rather a long way, you see."

"I totally see. Get off your high horse, give your buttocks some rest..." Crowley smiled slyly. "Now. What do you want? We don't see folks like you here."

It didn't sound so much like consideration as mocking, and Aziraphale had heard enough of that in his life. He smiled - diplomatically - and dismounted with as much grace as he could. He tugged the horse along, and approached slowly. 

"I suppose not. I'm afraid it's not entirely a social call. I am looking for a fellow, I believe they call him 'Crowley'? You see, we've heard of him even in the palace..." Or, Gabriel had.

"Even in the palace? Unbelievable," Crowley looked both puzzled and delighted. "And what, pray tell me, have they heard of this Crowley?" He internally reproached himself for enjoying the game too much.

"Well. They say this young man has been - ah - meddling with... dangerous things, and of course we would like to make sure all our subjects are safe. It would be terrible to cause some kind of - of issue - for everyone. You, ah, wouldn't happen to know him, would you?"

"Oh you handsome bugger," muttered Crowley and blushed. "Who are you to worry about your subjects? Any relation to that wanker Gabriel? His father was an arse too, but this one is a whole new level..." Crowley smirked.

"...I'd rather you didn't... wait, how do you know Gabriel?" He'd been ready to try to diffuse (not defend), but really, why would he know?

"The whole country knows your brother... Not the country you know, angel. The common folk. Those whom the likes of you rob. Anyway... How do you plan to find that Crowley fellow? Do you even know what he looks like? I know he has a terrible reputation. A son of a dragon and a witch, you know..."

"Excuse me, 'rob'? What precisely do you think I am here to do? You don't know me at all! How - how dare you? Are you this rude to everyone you meet?" He huffed, and wondered why everyone was so hideously impolite to him. What had he done to deserve this. "I am sure if he is all that impressive, I will be unable to avoid finding him. Possibly - e-eating frogs and - and doing wicked deeds!"

"Definitely... Yes. Frogs. Absolutely. Right... Have they mentioned anything about red hair? Tall-ish? Skinny? Is rude to everyone?" Crowley grinned and turned his head and whispered something into the abyss behind him.

"...I KNEW you were familiar! Crawly? You - you!" He tried to draw his sword, rather incensed by this ridiculous charade. "You will come with me back to the palace at ONCE!"

Behind Crowley a large black lindwrum's head rose. Crowley was but it's pupil but he kept grinning.

The lindwrum licked Crowley toe to head and growled "wrum wrum". 

"Shut up, Bentley, this is embarrassing." He stepped back and fell down the cliff.

Aziraphale didn't move immediately, shocked into complete stillness by the sudden appearance - and then disappearance - of what had to be a feral dragon. Which was, it seemed, perfectly happy to deal with hideously rude commoners. 

And... oh, he was supposed to capture him, wasn't he? And he'd gone and run off.

"...bugger."

The lindwrum rose again, now bearing Crowley on its back, erect and proud and grinning. He was standing on the dragon's back and waved at Aziraphale cheerily. "I'm going home, angel. And I won't even think about you!" 

The lindwrum made some agreeing "wrum wrum"s and flew away.


	2. Into the woods

Well, he had blown any element of surprise he had. Aziraphale should have been more circumspect, and less trusting. And to think - Crawly! Why didn't he think? Probably because it had been years. Years and years. And also he hadn't really known him when he'd still been at the palace. But why would he?

So. Crawly. Crowley. Whatever he was called. Aziraphale could barely recall anything of note to help him locate the man, and obviously the local people would not want to help, if they'd all gone missing already. So... what did he know?

A lindwrum. Serpentine, two-legged. Often associated with water, and fond of cattle. Well, he'd passed some fields on the way, and one of them was near the river. That would be the best place. He clucked his tongue at his horse, and tried not to wince as he set off.

***

Aziraphale only loosely bound his mount, knowing there was every risk the dragon would find and - well - attempt to snack upon his horse. And although he wanted his horse to remain to be ridden, he would rather it didn't horribly die as food. Even if it hurt his buttocks. 

"You stay here, alright?" he said, patting the beast on the shoulder. "Good. I shall be back soon."

He crept to the river-side, as quietly as he could. Staying down-wind. It was difficult, but he got close to the field where the cows were grazing. He could see something in the distance, and was that the beast? He leaned forwards, and then startled when suddenly a rush of scales nearby made him squawk and draw attention to himself.

Crowley dismounted Bentley and walked towards Aziraphale, determined and angry. It had been hours since Aziraphale saw him last so he had every chance to bring more people and more dragons, if rumours were something to go by.

"What the fuck do you need, you idiot?" Demanded Crowley. Bentley let out some supportive "wrum wrum"s behind him.

"Well, I thought I made that evident, before you so rudely ran away." He hadn't drawn his sword this time, and perhaps - ah - walking up to someone on a dragon, on foot, was not the most thought out of plans. "...how on  _ Earth _ did you get him to let you ride him?"

"Bentley is female!" Growled Crowley. "Hoped you'd recognise her, she was your cousin Lucifer's dragon and your lot wept bitterly when he fell." Crowley turned back to Bentley and said something to her. She was apparently disappointed but obeyed and moved farther from Aziraphale.

"...she... what?" He blinked. "She was his? I - I wasn't exactly..." Of course feral dragons were the ones who had been bound to nobles, once. Unless they bred in the wild, and there was no information they ever had, he just had never considered that he'd know them. But he'd also never really thought about it. "He died so very long ago... How did you know?"

"How did you find me, angel? How the fuck did you find me and more importantly, her?" Crowley took a step closer. He was unarmed, but had the air of someone royally pissed about him.

"Well, I might not have looked between her legs, but I know more about dragons than probably anyone alive. So I simply used that to track you down. But you haven't told me how you know that you found Lucifer's dragon? You could be - you could be making that up!" He didn't want to look at her, and he lifted his chin defiantly. "There is a reason I was tasked with this!"

"With what?" Crowley hissed. He took his sunglasses off and looked at Aziraphale suspiciously.

That caused a little startle, at the eyes which fixed upon him. They really were unusual, weren't they? Perhaps the rumours were true. "With - with getting you to the palace, to prove once and for all that you are - that you cannot do what you say you can!"

"I've said nothing." Crowley reminded. "You've traveled all the way from the capital, tried to snoop around, made so much noise I was warned about your arrival... and for what? To track me down and try to negotiate with me while Bentley lounges nearby?"

"Well, your choice is either come with me and try to tame my late father's dragon, or else I'm sure my sweet brother would gladly send the entire garrison of bound dragons and riders here. And as I can see - what - you and one lindwrum? I doubt you would get particularly far against them." He sniffed, feeling rather irked. "There is no negotiating. You could burn me alive if you so wanted, but I am sure it would not take them long to take their revenge. My brother is, if nothing else, very sure to defend the idea of nobility. In principle, if not in deed."

"And what if I bond with your father's dragon? What if I, a commoner, bond with the king's dragon? But of course I won't, so I'm riding to my imminent demise... Tempting, it is not. Well, let me settle some things. I have children and I want to part from them properly. Me and Bentley will return in an hour - and if we don't... Well, you told what'll happen. Seems like a fair deal?"

A pale-curled head tilted, as he considered it. It was fair, a deal which comprised for both. He really didn't want bloodshed, and if he could calm Gabriel down, and learn what Crowley had learned...

He thrust his hand out, to seal the arrangement. "You may see me as your enemy, but I'd kindly ask you to reserve your judgment on myself. I truly do wish to resolve this."

"Still didn't get your name, angel. I'll come back just to learn it," Crowley shook Aziraphale's hand and grinned brightly and coyly. "We'll be back soon."

Bentley moved towards him as soon as she saw him walking to her and extended a wing. Crowley swiftly climbed it, and he was still climbing when Bentley took flight.

***

When Crowley returned, Aziraphale appeared to be having a lovely chat with his horse. Hopeless, really hopeless, thought Crowley and walked towards the other man.

"So, here we are. I brought you some wine and fresh food." He crouched to unpack his bag and handed Aziraphale a flask and a clean cloth wrapped around something that smelled most wonderfully.

"... You wanted a... Picnic?" He frowned in confusion, but his belly audibly voted in favour. "That's... Very kind. Uh, do you have enough for yourself? Or should we share?"

"I have a bag full of food, what's your name?" Said Crowley in one breath and sat on the grass cross-legged. "But we're definitely sharing. Unwrap it."

Behind him Bentley harrumphed unpleasantly.

"Now, you," Crowley turned and shook his finger at the dragon, "have just eaten four bushels of apples! You don't get to complain." He turned back to Aziraphale and smiled. "So. Name."

Aziraphale looked at the grass, then turned to his horse and retrieved a blanket. He placed it down, fussing it flat, before he sat down and put the supplies between them. 

"Aziraphale. And you... Are you Crawly, or Crowley, now?"

"Aziraphale? Are you? Didn't you have a flaming dragon of your own?" Crowley picked a chive and began eating it loudly.

Aziraphale watched suspiciously which things Crowley ate, making sure he followed suit. Just in case. 

"... Yes." It was uncomfortable, and he squirmed, avoiding eye contact.

"So, what happened to your dragon, Aziraphale? And the name is Crowley, as it has always been, even when your blessed father fought it was funny to have a jester called Crawly." He picked an apple and laid into the grass. Bentley made an offended noise.

Ah, his father hadn't been... the best. Not the worst, but not the best, either. 

"...I..." He gripped at some blades of grass, his face going red. "I gave it away!"

Crowley choked on his apple and sat up speaking through violent coughs.

"You WHAT?"

"Look - it was - I didn't  _ want _ to, but - but they were going to make her - Eve, that is - marry Gabriel... and she was in love! And - and she would have been miserable! And they would never have made it away from the palace!" He dug his nails into the dirt, looking pleadingly at him. "I - we - we agreed that she should help. Alexandria and I. It was...  _ Horrible _ , but she needed Alexandria more than I did." 

He'd never told anyone. He'd let everyone think his dragon had gone mad, or they'd lost their connection, and that she'd attacked Eve and then been sent away by him for going feral. And he'd never told anyone, in case they went looking for her and brought her - and Eve - home. "It was... just the best thing we could do, is all."

Crowley sputtered and coughed some more and lost his glasses and tried to gape and laugh simultaneously which only led to tears appearing in his eyes. 

"You know, angel, I never regretted being kicked out of the palace, but seeing as I got kicked out for you, I am so proud of myself. I should have let it happened earlier."

"You - you--" Oh, this was so embarrassing! So very embarrassing. And too much to process, and he stumbled up to his feet. "I need to - I need some air, I'm - I'm sorry, I--" He flustered his way into the trees, fighting a rising panic in his chest.

Crowley watched Aziraphale go in confusion. "Thought I was rather smooth..." 

***

As he ran, he tried not to think about it, but how couldn't he? He'd never admitted what he'd done, not to anyone. No one went and gave their dragons away! It was just not done! You bonded with them. You didn't get to give that up. And he hadn't... he'd felt terribly guilty about sending Alexandria away. He'd loved her most deeply, but both of them had been moved by Eve's plight. Eve had fallen for her handmaiden, and Gabriel would never have accepted it, and - oh - it had been so horrifying to think about. 

He hadn't even - truly - broken his connection to his Ryu. He'd just... let her go do what was needed. And it had still hurt like being ripped in two, and he knew Alexandria felt the same way. But it was - it was what was the right thing to do. Wasn't it? He hadn't disrespected her. It didn't mean they hadn't been close. It had been giving up a part of himself, and no one else would ever even understand, let alone appreciate his sacrifice. And then Crowley had said that and--

In the middle of one relatively major panic attack, he looked up and... bears. Bears. Big, mean-looking buggers. Big. Claws. Teeth. Muscles. Fur. 

Dragons did not scare Aziraphale one bit, they never had. He'd respected them, but never been afraid, even of a feral one. Bears, on the other hand, were entirely unknown. And when one reared up, he turned slightly and started to back away. The second reared up, and he scrambled a few paces back, only to find the earth beneath him decided to betray him by running out. 

The screech he made as he fell was not a pleasant one, but he wasn't conscious long enough to feel too bad about it.

***

The bears as it happened were having a very interesting conversation about whether they had an odd or even number of pine nuts. Once that was settled (odd) they moved on to considering whether the number was prime. Hastur just finished explaining to Ligur that a prime number of pine nuts could not be equally divided with several whole bears when they heard rustling and saw a distressed blond man. 

Both bears rose to help, but somehow the man became even more distressed and stepped back. 

"Careful there," said Hastur.

"There's a..." Continued Ligur, but the man fell. The bears pensively hummed. 

"Should we help him?" Asked Hastur.

"I don't know... What if he shits himself?" Ligur winced. 

They heard rustling again and saw Crowley looking quite distressed himself.

"Hey guys. Been a while. What's up? Have you by any chance seen an angel running around?"

"Crowley, you skinny cub!" Greeted Hastur.

"There was a critter... A man, and he fell down over there." Ligur pointed in the direction of Aziraphale's fall. 

"Was scared of us." Hastur was offended.

"Bloody idiot!" Wailed Crowley and rushed to Aziraphale's help. 

"What's an angel?" Asked Ligur.

"Don't know... Must be something edible. Otherwise why would Crowley bother?" Hastur mused.

"Right," Ligur nodded. "Should we help Crowley? He won't shit himself."

"Oh... Whyever not?" 

And the bears followed Crowley.

***

Aziraphale was not comfortable. Very much so. This was not a soft, comfortable bed. He hated waking up at the best of times, but right now he was in a strange position and his neck was cramped and his head was throbbing and he was sure his leg shouldn't feel like this and he was confused why there were lots of green things in front of his eyes. He tried to sit up, groaned melodramatically, and then fell back down again.

Crowley and the bears loomed over Aziraphale.

"So... Alright, he's alive and dramatic, good!" Said Crowley but didn't sound very convincing.

"We could help carry him," Hastur offered. "Unless you want to eat him here, raw. You humans eat weird things..." 

Somehow the suggestion made Crowley blush.

"We'll only carry him if he doesn't shit himself," warned Ligur. 

"You guys are a treasure!" Crowley beamed. "Come, Ligur, help me lift him and put him on Hastur's back."

"Why is it always me?" Asked Hastur.

"Because... Why not?" Ligur shrugged and lifted Aziraphale without any help from Crowley which meant that the bear paid no attention to Aziraphale's whines of pain as Ligur practically dropped him on Hastur.

"Terrific." Said Crowley dryly.

"...eat me?" Aziraphale squeaked, as he was lifted and plonked into place. Apparently he hadn't got enough control over his faculties to do much in the way of moving, yet. He was still rather stunned. "No one is eating me!"

"Of course not, angel. But I'm definitely treating you." Crowley didn't sound very confident. "I'll treat you and you'll take me on a lovely trip across the country to my untimely death, and it's going to be alright."

"Wait, you're going away?" Hastur asked.

"Yeah. With him." Crowley nodded at Aziraphale.

"Ah... Alright." Hastur shrugged and Aziraphale on his back moaned.

"He doesn't look ready for a long trip," Ligur shook his head. "And did you mention something about death?"

"No, I didn't," lied Crowley. No reason to worry Ligur. He was a caring bear.

"He's supposed to try to tame the king's dragon," Aziraphale muttered, glumly, and whimpered. "Could you please be more careful? I think I broke something."

"Oh, that one can," Hastur agreed. "He's not like you, scared of a bear. Or a dragon."

"He's not afraid of dragons," said Crowley.

"Then he shouldn't be afraid of bears." Ligur pointed out.

"Dragons don't normally eat people, or say that they want to," he argued. "You have big teeth."

"And you have big eyes, so what?" Muttered Crowley.

"...eyes can't eat people? Why do you even bring that up? I must have hit my head harder than I thought."

"And I'll hit it even harder if you don't shut up!" Crowley suddenly yelled, but there were tears in his voice. "And eyes like yours fucking eat people!" He quickened his step and Ligur decided to follow him. At one point Aziraphale could swear he saw Ligur stopping to give Crowley a very good hug.

"...can someone please make the world make sense?"

"Crowley won't do it. Too much imagination, that one... Really, too damn much." Concluded Hastur.

"Have you always spoken?"

"Of course! What sort of question is that?" Hastur was scandalised.

"...well, generally one asks questions when one doesn't already know the answer," Aziraphale mumbled, and then ouch it hurt some more. And then he was out again.

  
  


***

  
  


Bentley held her wing over her head which left more than enough space for her friend who had left to fetch some firewood while her friend's friend was resting. Raindrops were gently tapping on Bentley's wing and how lovely it was, cool water on her always warm skin!

Crowley's friend seemed trustworthy. Nothing could compare to a smart dragoness (for Bentley at least) or to Crowley's roaring, fire-hot kindness, but this man also wasn't that bad. She liked how white his curls were, and how his blue eyes glimmered in the dusk as he slowly opened them, and how soft and warm he was leaning on Bentley's body. She approved.

Aziraphale hadn't been this close to a dragon in - oh - so very long. For a moment, as he stirred, he thought it was his Alexandria, come back at last, now that Eve no longer needed her. He stirred, a hand sliding along warm scales, but the sudden pain in his head reminded him where he was. 

A moment of sorrow, and he offered a slight smile. "You're much nicer than a bear. But don't tell them I said that."

Bentley rolled her eyes affectionately, cooed and gave Aziraphale a friendly lick from the waist up.

That made the knight yelp in protest, because it was WET and he was SORE and now there was sticky goo all over him. "Hey! Not nice!"

Bentley's eyes glowed and she huffed, disappointed.

"You don't go around licking people! It's - it's just not done." He sighed. "I'm sorry, but you should understand my head is rather sore, and I haven't been licked in many years. A little warning or - or perhaps not when I'm so sore, would have been preferable."

Bentley didn't listen. She shut her eyes and pretended to sleep even blowing a soft snore in Aziraphale's direction.

"You can't fool me, young lady. I had a dragon of my own. I know perfectly well you can understand me if you wish to." He puffed his cheeks and blew on her nose. "Now, will you stop sulking?"

Bentley immediately stopped sulking although it had nothing to do with Aziraphale - Crowley returned with firewood and dropped his cargo loudly. "You're awake! Good. I was worried." He turned around and kissed Bentley's snout. "Been a good girl, right? Sweet Bentley... Yeah, I know, I know... Once the rain is over you can fly back, love. It was so kind of you to offer us shelter... Wanna light the fire for us? Just be careful."

Bentley harrumphed and somehow managed to let out only a little lick of flame. "Thank you. I'll give you all my apples!" Crowley took ten apples out of his bag and offered them to Bentley.

Aziraphale peered up at him, pulling himself into a little bundle of limbs, not sure if he was in danger or not. Yes, he had Crowley's agreement, but he'd just revealed how easy it was for him to be incapacitated. And whilst Crowley might not want Gabriel to turn up, he'd get a while to prepare... 

But he hadn't been at all aggressive, just... well. Awkward, and confrontational, which was to be understood. "You know she can't come with us, don't you? She would be at risk. I'm not saying Gabriel would hurt her, but he would definitely think she needed... to be kept under control..."

Crowley's head snapped up at these words. "I just told her she's to fly back as soon as the rain is over. Are you that thick?" He pushed a wooden cup into Aziraphale's hands. "Drink."

"But you might--" he sighed, and refused to take the cup. "Look. My head is  _ very _ sore. I've just been mauled by bears and licked by wurms. I was quite happy staying in my library, and I am not feeling very appreciated, for all I'm trying to do."

"Mauled by bears? How dare you? You're just like the rest of your lot, aren't you? You even want appreciation from your effective hostage! That's huge. Fuck. I should have left you there, I should have!" Crowley downed the cup himself.

"Well - why didn't you? What aren't you telling me? Why did you get removed from court, anyway, and why were you there to begin with if you hate my family so much?"

He sniffled, trying to not get weepy. "I could have just let them burn you all out, but no, I was stupid enough to think maybe I could help somewhat... and find out if it truly was possible, and - and - and if she *hated* me... if..." Nope. He bit his lip until it was nearly bleeding. "Would you rather just let them come without any hope of something better?"

Crowley collapsed, cross-legged, and took a bite out of a chicken leg. "I hate your family. I hate you all. Not with passion, mind you, not as I would have hated someone I used to love..." Crowley chuckled. "I have those stupid eyes and I was living on the streets for most of my life. Once when your father was performing his usual "charity" by the marketplace, I was so hungry and angry... I was maybe sixteen... Can't recall." He closed his eyes and rested his head against Bentley's body. She quietly harrumphed. "So I decided I'd steal from the king, and I did. I was caught immediately of course. The king asked who I was. I replied I was his people and if I needed to steal to remind him of that, then so be it... See, I taught myself to read and well... Was rather... Pompous. The king turned very serious, and I thought, that was it... But he asked for my name, and he said that Crawly was more fitting and that I should be his jester. He knew how cruel that was, to let the whole court laugh at me. But I took the opportunity, not that I had any choice. I asked questions, I learned, I... Slithered around. Jester can allow himself much freedom. I learned to mock them, and the king enjoyed it. I never dared to mock the king, though, the coward that I was.

"I was twenty when  _ you _ were being mocked, again, in front of the whole bunch of those arses. You stormed out, in tears. So I said, "Lookie here, the last decent person in this court has just left... Dragons must soon follow."

"I was kicked out that very minute. I traveled South, came by a dragon... I would read a lot from the royal library, so I recognized her. It was Bentley. I tamed her, we found more dragons... Years went by, I was happy and useful. Until you showed up, damn you," Crowley concluded without spite.

"I - I remember you, but I - I didn't really... I didn't..." Aziraphale dropped his head. "I didn't pay much attention. Not because I didn't... not because of your station, but because I didn't really approve. I had no idea you even noticed me... I didn't like the whole..." He couldn't put it into words, so he waved his hands, trying to gesture and explain something he'd never really tried to, before. "I'm sorry. Though I suspect you were rather happier, once you did leave. You managed to escape." His chest heaved, very heavily. "I didn't want to come. Not like this. But I'm just one man, and... well. Even if you do have dragons, I don't see how you could beat trained, bonded knights, with all their money and knowledge, and also I would rather there weren't any fights but I don't see how we could... avoid that..."

Bugger it all. All! Why did this have to happen? "They don't know everything. They destroyed it, you know. A few generations ago. Burned the whole library down, but the fellow who did... well. He got his come-uppance. But I can't help but think we're all losing out because of that..."

Crowley raised his head and smiled. His eyes remained covered and the flames danced in them. "You were great, angel. The only good one among them. Must have been hard to be... Well, you..." He looked up at the wing. "The rain stopped. We should let Bentley go. I put up a tent under the trees, so it must have remained dry... If it knows what's good for it. I fed your horse and let her wander around a bit. She'll come back, don't worry. You'll rest the night and we'll set out at dawn."

"You know I don't want to be doing this, don't you?" he asked, worriedly. "I'm - I'm trying the best I can. It's..." Stiff upper lip. "If I knew what we could do, I would. I'm just trying to make the least bad of what we have."

Crowley nodded absent-mindedly and stood on his tippy toes to kiss Bentley's snout. "Hey baby... Time to go home." 

Bentley looked crestfallen. "Hey, you're not my dragon, right? We're really good friends and you'll be alright and I love you a lot, you hear me?" He was crying now, and Bentley sniffled too. "Come, lick me one last time and off you fly."

Bentley obediently licked Crowley at least ten times and rose into the air.

Crowley watched her fly away. 

Then he wiped his tears and looked at Aziraphale again. "I'll take you to the tent... Try to get up... Slowly."

Aziraphale knew how that felt. Actually, worse, he thought, because at least Crowley hadn't bonded with the wurm. But it still hurt, and he awkwardly clambered to his feet, and then patted the taller man's shoulder. "Sometimes it... is better to do it, even if it hurts."

His eyelids pressed so tightly shut that he could see his Ryu's scales sparkling. "At least, that's what I tell myself, to get through. And who knows, perhaps you will befriend Gabriel's own beast from beneath him, and have even more friends."

It wasn't the best thing to say, in hindsight, because Crowley's head dropped into his hands and he cried fully, with sobs and broken words.

Bugger. Not good. Not good at all. Wobbling on his one good leg, Aziraphale wrapped an arm around his shoulders, though he wasn't particularly skilled at knowing how to comfort. It was what people did, and he patted him a little vaguely, but concernedly. "No... don't cry... please don't. I am not very good when people cry. It is usually me."

Crowley actually managed to laugh and cry, both at once. 

They slowly moved towards the forest where the tent had been placed.


	3. Ladylord of the lake and rain

Aziraphale had not slept in a tent, ever. Not outdoors. He had once been made to sleep in one in the house, and it had been boring, and uncomfortable, and beds were much better. You didn't go around inventing beds and then not use them, but it was late, and his head hurt, and his ankle was sore and the nearest inn was far too far away to reach. 

He did not sleep well, whilst he was sore, and Crowley was sad, and there were no dragons, and there were more questions than answers and maybe next time Gabriel came anywhere near, he should pretend to be dead. Thanatosis. Reptiles did it, so it stood to reason dragons might, and if it worked for them, it could work for him. 

Eventually he had slept. And then woke. To find his head pushed between shoulderblades. And knees bent and - awkwardly he'd rolled away and pretended he hadn't been touching him anywhere whatsoever. And then scooted out into the air and to his horse to look for the few provisions he'd stored to make them something warm to drink. (Slowly, because he could only put weight on one leg for any extended period of time.)

An hour or so later Crowley indeed crawled out of the tent as well and stood up as a snake would do it - gradually and gracefully but without any hint of actual limbs being involved. He stretched, yawned, made a vague greeting and sauntered away somewhere with a bag. 

He returned sometime later, cleanly shaved, refreshed and beaming in the morning sun. He was a man well rested and ready to sweep any trouble off its feet or cause trouble in his own right.

Aziraphale had fashioned a bandage over his ankle. Which was likely more for show and comfort than it was medicinal. His foot was propped up, but he had made a small fire (it looked like it had taken him some time from the remains around it) and some mugs of tea. 

He had not shaved. Although he had washed. But he blinked up at him and nodded to the tea. "Afraid I have only biscuits left in my pack, but we can have those for breakfast."

Crowley rolled his eyes - Aziraphale had just noticed that they weren't covered and didn't have the time to look or comment. 

The former jester sauntered to his bigger bag and pulled out some cheese, tomatoes and a flat bread. 

He began slicing the food and after everything was cleanly and beautifully arranged on the flat bread offered it to Aziraphale, but pulled his hand back at the last moment.

"Say, angel, did you spoon me during the night? Also, this is for sharing. Eat your half, I'm going to get us some berries... It's the season for raspberries after all!" He walked away yet again.

Jaw dropped, then lifted. "No. And even if I did, one cannot be held responsible for anything one does or says in their sleep. And - and - I was sharing _mine_. I have money for inns! I didn't come to - to slum it like this... I would have brought food if I did."

He watched the swaggering arse leave, and grumpily stuffed bread into his mouth. "Not as if you have any meat on your bones anyway," he mumbled.

Chomp. Chomp. "Fatten you up if you were to be of any use as a pillow. All bones. Pointy." Chomp. Oh, wait... wasn't he supposed to leave some of that?

When Crowley returned, his hands a bowl in front of him, with a heap of fresh, cool, ripe berries, Aziraphale was finishing his own biscuits and the flat bread was nowhere to be seen.

"Proper noble, aren't you? A commoner shares his food and roof with you, and you devour the food and snuggle up the commoner's arse! And have the cheek to complain about the quality of that arse! That's a new low. Or high, seeing as you are a highborn." 

Crowley lounged by the fire and began to slowly eat raspberries, which, since both his hands were occupied, implied using his far too long tongue to lift the berries into his mouth.

Aziraphale glared at him. And didn't blink. And glared some more. "When we get to the next place which accepts CURRENCY and not WILD MAN SKILLS, I will happily buy you all the bread you need. I was hungry, and you were uncouth, and you would have to have an arse in order for me to snuggle up to it." Pause. "And you SNORE."

Crowley paid no attention to Aziraphale's words and just continued his breakfast which he seemed to be enjoying immensely. 

"Between the two of us..." Crowley said at some point, licking his lips, "I'm the one who's shaven and wears a clean shirt and is capable of washing it in a river. I'm the one who knows the shortest way to the nearest inn, so I'm not the wild one here. As for snoring, once you stopped tossing and turning, Hastur came by to talk about the prime numbers. He then fell asleep and snored. And you spooned a commoner."

"I may very well murder one, soon. And who talks about prime numbers in the middle of the night?" Aziraphale considered throwing something at Crowley's head. "Just because I happen to live in a house with a roof and running water... I'm slumming it for your stupid sake and all those wild dragons. Forgive me for not knowing everything about how to live in a field! I was rather busier with looking up things to make life better for the one thing we have in common!"

"And what is that?" Wondered Crowley finishing up his truly royal breakfast.

"Well it certainly isn't perspicacity! Dragons, you - you - beast! I can see why my father chose to make a jester out of you after all."

Crowley's features tightened. "You finish your food and you get on that horse and unless you want me to leave you in the middle of the fucking forest lost and alone, you will keep your mouth shut. You offend people like you offend animals. You see no difference, because every creature is just means to an end. You turn people against each other as you turn dragons against each other, but none of that matters, does it? Means to an end." 

He walked to the tent and began folding it.

Aziraphale took his shoe off, and threw it at him. "Come back here and talk like a man instead of making light of everything! How do you expect anyone to take you seriously if you act like you do?!"

The shoe of course didn't reach its aim. The purpose of the shoe, on the other hand, was achieved. Crowley slowly turned around. 

"I agreed to go with you to save my people, my family. You agreed to come and get me to get back into that wanker's good books. I have a reason to live and to die. You, on the other hand, are currently behaving like a coward." He returned to the tent folding and once he was done, he put his bag on his shoulder and started walking.

"I DON'T CARE WHAT GABRIEL THINKS OF ME, DO YOU THINK I SENT MY DRAGON AWAY TO SAVE SOMEONE FROM MARRYING HIM BECAUSE I GIVE TWO SHITS WHAT HE THINKS? NO!" Aziraphale stood on one leg, and grabbed hold of the nearest tree. "Coward? COWARD? I could have hidden in my library! I could have been just like the rest of them! But what did I do? I CAME OUT HERE TO TRY! Just because I'm not some mighty, so-noble IDIOT who thinks it's fine to insult everyone and then be angry when they are hurt! You know NOTHING about me! Nothing! Nor do you care to find out! How would _anyone_ ever want to help you if all you do is act like this?"

Crowley kept walking. He really couldn't think of anything else to say, although... No.

"I didn't come searching for your help, angel, you came running to me, so how about that? You shut your mouth and remain quiet for the rest of the way? Good luck getting on that horse, by the way."

Aziraphale sat down. He was not going to play along. He was not. He kicked dirt to put the fire out. And then picked up the remnants of the food, and threw that on the ashes. And then some more. And then he threw himself on his back, and stared up at the sky. If Crowley wanted to walk off, he could. Aziraphale would wait until he was calm enough, and then get on his horse, and go home anyway.

"Get the fuck up!" An angry voice said above him.

"Shan't."

There was a heavy sigh above him, then a quiet whistle. Aziraphale heard his horse trotting closer and then getting down. 

Rather lanky but surprisingly strong hands manhandled Aziraphale on the horse's back - and disappeared. The horse started moving, and Crowley started whistling louder.

"I said - what are you DOING?" The knight squawked, indignantly, struggling to sit in the saddle. "Aren't you ready to run off and take your dragons and your family far away? Surely there's places you could escape to? And be free from the horrible tyranny of the people who happened to be born somewhere else?"

Crowley didn't answer but kept whistling. Aziraphale's horse nuzzled at his hair and Crowley petted her and whispered something in her ear. If horses could blush, she would have, but as it happened, Crowley took a wild apple out of his pocket and fed it to the horse. The apples kept coming, and Crowley kept whistling and flirting with the bloody horse.

"Crowley. Crowley. CROWLEY." Aziraphale considered throwing himself from the horse, but it would hurt, and also it would be rather immature. "Will you please stop this? Please! I do not understand why you are so - so - infuriating. But I did not come here to fight you, and you seem intent on it happening. Unlike you, I cannot simply travel in silence. So--"

Crowley stopped whistling which was refreshing. He then extended his hand to his right and dangled the shoe Aziraphale had thrown at him in the air.

"...thank you," he said, then pulled the horse to a halt, and put the shoe back on. "I - apologise. For... what I said. But I think you may have been in your role for a little too long. And - I want to work _with_ you."

This time Crowley did turn around. "I was there when you were mocked, Aziraphale. Would you like to be reminded of those moments? I suppose not. Make your calculations, show yourself indeed noble and perhaps we could work together. So far all I've done was a bit of... Teasing? Flirting? Perhaps both. Perhaps none. But I'm open with you and honest. Had you admitted that you for a single fucking moment of your life needed a commoner, namely me, for such a human, no, living thing as warmth at night, I wouldn't have continued to tease you. I learned as you never have that humour is indeed the best medicine in that it pulls the truth out of everyone... It might not be particularly pleasant at times, but as you have seen, I mean you no harm."

"Well. You certainly caused it. You - you know I was the butt of their jokes. Much as you were, but at least it wasn't yo-your family, who... it never stopped, even when you left, you know. It became worse. So no. I do not want them to think nicely of me. I would rather they never thought of me at all, and - and it felt like you were acting just the same as they had." 

Aziraphale fiddled nervously with the reins. "I do not... like it when people... act like that. And. I was angry and hurt, and I lashed out, rather than... lie back and let you continue." Aziraphale shook his head. "What you see as humour, I see as... torture. I have learned that it is best to run when it's possible, but right now... I cannot run."

Crowley's hand was on Aziraphale's knee somehow the very next moment. "You dumb... Fluffy... Adorable dufus! You could have told me about... Any of it! And you could have admitted to spooning me, because I rather liked it, to be honest. I'm always cold and I wasn't cold with you and you're an idiot!" Crowley waved his hands in the air, lost for words, and went on walking, gesticulating wildly and talking to himself and messing his hair.

"Well. You didn't ask. And you didn't give me any kind of - I mean I - you hurt my feelings," Aziraphale grumped, his cheeks hot. "And I didn't mean it. I was just - I was cold and tired and I don't - don't _do_ the people thing very well. But if you didn't hate it I suppose I don't need to apologise, at least." But then Crowley was off again, and he nudged the horse very slightly to continue to follow him.

"...but you do need to eat more. You are terribly, terribly bony. And I'd need to pad you if I wanted to be comfortable for long."

"Not hunting for you, angel." Crowley shook both his head and a hand to make the point absolutely clear. "This place is full of my friends..." He looked up and squinted. "Gonna rain soon... Again. Oh where is my sweet Bentley? Better not talk of her..."

"You could eat more fruit. Or grains. But you've always been like that, haven't you?" The knight was trying to remember. "If we are to... Work... together... It may make sense to... share our knowledge?"

"It's definitely going to rain!" Crowley turned around looking at the sky. "We must find a good place to take cover... Move along, angel!"

"... So you _don't_ want to share information? My horse is moving!"

"You have no idea what it is when it really rains here, you... Aaaargh, whatever! It was drizzling yesterday but it's going to be a fucking flood."

He walked faster and stopped under a particularly large oak with thick canopy of leaves. 

"Start the fire, angel, we won't be able to do it quite soon."

"...well, you _could_ say that in an... educational way," the knight rumbled, and climbed down from the horse. "Or at least a nicer tone." But he was determined to make it work, so he hitched the horse and gingerly lowered himself down. He had some firewood ready, so he started to arrange it. "Fire was suspected to be the first way that humans and dragons interacted, you know. At least, that's what is mentioned in several texts. It could be that it's backwards philosophising, but I found it interesting."

Aziraphale's lecture was rudely interrupted by thunder. He looked up and saw that Crowley was climbing down from a very big tree hollow. He pulled out of his apparently bottomless bag a huge greased cloth which he used to cover the horse. She didn't seem to mind some additional care.

Crowley was moving quickly and maybe a bit frantically as he prepared the food and hid the supplies (including Aziraphale's saddlebags) in the tree hollow.

"The hollow will give us enough protection. Old trees make sure the younger ones don't grow too fast, because otherwise the young trees are not ready for the winds and rain, so the horse is going to be alright too..." 

He was shaking with cold, although the rain hadn't begun yet, and his yellow eyes with slit pupils were almost orange. 

He kept rambling through their meal. The old oak proved to be a really good cover for them, but Crowley was restless all the same, and his sentences soon lost any resemblance of coherence. When Aziraphale joined him in the hollow, Crowley was feverish.

"Crowley..." The knight pulled the packs deeper into the hollow, and made a little nest of their things. "Crowley, are you quite alright? You don't look so good." He leaned over, putting the back of his hand on his head. "Oh, you do _not_ feel right! You foolish boy..." 

Aziraphale pulled his jacket off, wrapping it around the taller man's shoulders, and started to rub his back. "Do you often get this cold?"

Crowley didn't answer. He shivered most miserably and wrapped his arms around himself. The blanket, his big light woolen blanket was all over the place only not on Crowley.

Alright. Aziraphale was not much of a people person, but he had been poorly as a child, and he vaguely remembered how nursemaids had taken care of him. Once the coat was over him, he grabbed the next thing - blanket - and wrapped it around him, pinning his hands into his armpits, and swaddled him up to keep the heat in. That's what you did to babies, wasn't it? He couldn't set a fire in the tree, and he had nothing else to do, so he gently eased his head down onto the kit bag. "Right. Right. Don't you go getting sick on me. I am absolutely no good at dealing with sick people. So you must lie down, and - and - get better. Because I don't know how to summon bears, or - or anything - so..."

He rubbed up and down his back and over his flank and thighs, then urged him into a foetal ball. "I'm - well - you said you didn't mind, so... well. Damnit." He was shorter, but he could use most of his torso against Crowley's, and tuck his knees under his butt. "Don't you _dare_ die on me."

Crowley stilled eventually, and his breath evened but the slight shiver remained. He wasn't asleep but wasn't conscious either, muttering something and trying to thrash every now and then, which Aziraphale's embrace prevented most successfully.

Aziraphale did not sleep, not fully. The howling storm and the thrashing collection of bones in his arms kept him from properly going under. Watchful naps, where he didn't totally go under were the best he could manage, though when the rain stopped, at least a little of the worry died. 

When the dawn had poked too hard, he stirred, squeezing the bundle he was holding, wondering what to do next. He hadn't really been responsible for another life in... A long time. Though he was beginning to wonder if that was fair of him. Gabriel was the new king, but he had more power than most of the population. If they got through this, he'd need to work out what he could do. "Crowley? Are you feeling any better?"

Crowley groaned and slowly turned in Aziraphale's arms. 

The hollow hardly let any light in, but Aziraphale could see that Crowley seemed confused. 

"You smell good," said Crowley, completely unselfconscious. He buried his nose under Aziraphale's chin and breathed in deeply. "Thank you," he muttered. "I... I didn't mean to, I'm sorry but... Thank you. And you really, really, really smell good." Crowley lifted his head and looked Aziraphale in the eye, something questioning, something open and sincere, something vulnerable and trusting, all that vinaigrette of emotions plonked on Aziraphale first thing in the morning

"I smell like musk and tree," the knight laughed, relieved that words had come back at least. "If that smells good, perhaps you're still rather sick." He brushed Crowley's hair back from where it had plastered, still fussing. It was his natural state. "You really rather worried me, dear boy. I was in quite a tizz. Do you need anything? Water?" Aziraphale was not used to contact. At all. And was squirming awkwardly.

Crowley caught on that immediately and moved away. "I'm far better... It happens sometimes, especially when there's rain. Maybe I _am_ a bastard child of a witch and a dragon, huh?" And he climbed out of the hollow. Aziraphale heard him cooing over the horse and cursing over something and wandering off for a shave and a wash.

Oh. Aziraphale felt a little... hurt? No. It was good. If he was able to be up and about, it meant he was feeling better. And not that he didn't--

A little awkwardly, he climbed out after him. He was more than a tad worse for wear, after two bad nights and no shaving, plus his head had stopped hurting so much but his ankle was still a pain and none of this was going to any form of plan. He tried to make fire again. A little more successfully, though his eyes kept drifting shut when he didn't pay enough attention, only to slap himself in the face to wake up.

"You should have some sleep without any need to cuddle me, angel," said Crowley returning. He was pale but somehow still handsome, refreshed and orderly. "Sleep. I'll make us proper breakfast... Hastur was nearby at night, I can smell it." Crowley sniffed. "I thought... You know, you do like books, right?"

"We'll never arrive before the--" yawn, "--knights get restless if we keep stopping. If you're certain you can make breakfast I--" Wait, did he fall asleep? He jerked upright. "Just a brief nap. Sorry. Worried all night."

A long, long pause that only existed everywhere but Aziraphale's consciousness, which was a thinly-beaded string of pearls. "Mmmm. Boooookkkkkssssss. Got some. Brought them. _Stole_ them. No one cares..."

"You're hopeless, angel," said Crowley fondly. "Crawl back and have a fucking nap."

He busied himself with the food.

Aziraphale wanted cuddles, though. Apparently, he liked cuddles. Even if they were weird. So he grumpily moved where he was told, and leaned against the tree. And snored. Delicate, dainty, and dignified he was not.

Having made sure the food was quietly bubbling , Crowley scooted closer to Aziraphale. He lingered a bit but then -- oh, bugger all! -- he held Aziraphale and smooched his forehead.

"You silly angel..." Crowley grumped. He looked down at Aziraphale softly snoring on his shoulder. "How come you can be so infuriatingly beautiful? You have never been like that..." He allowed his legs to wrap around Aziraphale just so and closed his own eyes. "You... You..." He whispered tenderly. "Wish you never told me about your dragon, now that you did I have no reason not to be arse over elbow in love with you, you idiot... Fuck!"

Aziraphale was - perhaps fortunately - utterly oblivious to the world. At least, mentally speaking. Physically, he was entirely present, in the 'soft, unkempt ball of fluffy hair and messy clothes and squishy parts' way, that was currently burrowing into Crowley as if he was the most comfortable of blankets. He twitched - foot, hand - just a little, his eyes flitting rapidly under his lids as he crammed a night's worth of rest into the shortest space possible. It was a skill he'd honed, after years of staying up too late with candles and books. Sometimes you had to crash and snatch back enough sleep to function. It wasn't ideal, but it worked, and he rumbled out nonsense between wriggles. It was unlikely that dragons liked cheese, as he mused. Or that wing-span equated to bonded genital prowess. And it was possible the nursery-rhyme he hummed had nothing to do with anything. But he hummed it all the same, and then pushed under Crowley's head with a contented sigh. And another twitch.

Crowley chuckled, and then his heart did some interesting tricks, one of those Crowley always forbade Pepper to do. His heart had no teacher and no master, or he thought so. 

"Rest, angel. Rest, my... Darling." He breathed out. "Bloody fucking hell, angel... Fuck!" He shut up and rested his chin over Aziraphale's head. He felt as strong as a bear and as peculiar as Hastur among other bears. 

"Hey guys," Crowley whispered into the forest. "I have an adventure just for you. How about you come?"

  
  


***

When Aziraphale woke up he heard distant grunts and exclamations and some rather dramatic complaints. He groaned and sat up.

Crowley was sitting by the fire with Hastur and Ligur. They were eating nuts and Crowley was helping Hastur to find the first four digit prime number. 

"It's 1009!" Declared Hastur proudly.

"Will we ever get so many nuts?" Ligur asked. "And how does it go together with Fibonacci?"

"...wh-what?" He rubbed his eyes. "Why are you looking for Fibonacci nuts?" The knight licked dry lips, and was sad to wake up a little away from it all.

"No, I'm just trying to figure out whether the number of nuts corresponds to the Fibonacci numbers, that's all!" Ligur said soothingly. "But we brought you honey and berries!" 

"As if you deserved them!" Said Hastur and huffed. "And the next?"

Crowley frowned in concentration.

"1013, 1019, 1021..." He replied eventually.

"...well... thank you," Aziraphale mumbled, a little put out that they didn't think he deserved to be fed. He had been trying. 

"I believe the palace has some books on calculus and other topics, if you should like me to retrieve them. Or do you prefer to-- oh, I should have asked... do bears read? I don't mean to insult you with that question, but I have never heard of bear literature, so I assumed you... didn't?"

"We read fine," said Hastur and rolled his eyes. "I carried you on my back yesterday and you dare ask if I can read? We love it!" He looked at Ligur. "Don't we?" 

"Oh, we do!" Ligur agreed hastily. "But for now, have some good forest protein!" And held out a large maple leaf smeared with honey and nuts and berries glued to it.

"Well, I didn't want to be impolite and offer you something you can't read. You could be educated and not read, you know. I have no idea about your society, and maybe you should be glad I want to learn?" Aziraphale stretched, slowly. "You are the first bears I have encountered. I simply haven't known any, and none of my family has, either. So, please forgive my ignorance, and instead be bemused by my curiosity?"

"We're bemused," Ligur replied quickly. "Aren't we, Hastur?"

"We so are." Hastur replied and put his head on Crowley's lap for a good scratch.

"See," Crowley laughed. "They will take us to that place... It's not far, and it's abandoned, and there are so many books!" He grinned.

"...to... where?" Books?

"There's this old cabin," began Hastur. "It's said to be abandoned, but we don't have any proof. It's just each time we've been there, it was abandoned."

"So you can see," said Ligur in lieu of explanation. "We concluded it was abandoned. But maybe it isn't..."

"Anyway, Crowley said you would want books, so there is the place." Hastur finished. "We have no proof it's safe, but books, there are."

"Oh! Oh! That sounds fabulous! Oh - dearie me, I really - you would take us there? That sounds delightful! Crowley - do you think there will be books on dragons?"

"It's only about them bloody dragons," grumped Hastur as Crowley scratched behind his ear. 

"And witches," Ligur supplied. 

"It's a bit of everything," said Crowley finally. "But I bet you'd like it!" He grinned again. It wasn't a grin per se, it was an offering, an invitation, be it a courtly waltz or a cup of raspberry leaf tea or a warm embrace. Crowley was offering as if he had been the master of the universe, and he was offering half the universe at the very least.

Aziraphale bounced, trying to get to his feet. "So what are we waiting for! Why aren't we going, yet? We should set out at once!" The eagerness was far too big for his body, and he wiggled like he was sitting on hot coals.

"Well, for starters, you can't walk," Crowley laughed. "Second, you haven't had your breakfast yet. Third, it's alright, Hastur and Ligur have time."

"But we can eat while we travel, surely?" It was frustrating. "Come on! We're wasting too much time! How do we ever intend to tame my father's dragon if you don't use every bit of advantage you can?"

"Of course, angel, have your breakfast. It's not that far, don't you worry," Crowley assured.

"And then?" Hastur demanded.

"And then... Let me see... 1031, 1033,1039..." Crowley supplied. He didn't even look up at Aziraphale.

Out of some kind of perverse agreement, the knight started to stuff enough into his mouth to count, and then pack up their things. "M'done," he mumbled. "C'mon!"

"If you say so," replied Crowley. Hastur grumpily rose from his lap.

"Hey, remember that owl? Always bent your ear? Well, he asked if you wanted the birdies to sing something for you." Ligur offered.

"Oh, I'd love that!" Crowley beamed. "Could you do me a Dies Irae, that mad one, you know, with a lot of woodpeckers!"

"...are you all quite mad?" The knight hobbled to his horse, and awkwardly got on. "You can both walk and talk, surely! Look! The fate of - of - everything is in the balance and you're talking musical arrangements?"

"So, the mad one, with the woodpeckers and nightingales as sopranos? Gotta wake the lazy buggers!" Hastur grumped and suddenly roared. 

"Brilliant!" Crowley yelled pushing Aziraphale towards his horse. "It's only fitting after all," he exclaimed to the fussy princeling. "I am riding to my death and Requiem is definitely appropriate!"

"You do know that - that Lucifer was stronger than Gabriel, right? Before he died?" Aziraphale didn't like admitting it. "There was talk that - that when our father were to die... that he might challenge Gabriel. And... if you can tame Bentley, perhaps you could succeed? Who is to say you will die?"

"Nevermind, angel. I'm alright. Shall we?" Crowley took his bag and stood awaiting.

"Why do you keep deflecting? Don't you believe what you tell people?"

"You can hop on," Hastur offered his back. 

"Oh, thank you."

Crowley settled on Hastur's back, cross-legged and rather joyous.

"I must say, this is all jolly exciting. Much more fun than I expected." Aziraphale was beaming from ear to ear, looking happier - and feeling happier - than he had in a very long time.

They kept travelling until the sun began its slow descent to the horizon.

There was a bright blue opening in front of them -- a small lake.

"...Uh... This doesn't look like the right way?"

"And how come you know the right way?" Crowley smirked. "Get off your horse, we're having a wash, you're having a shave and..."

With a loud splash Hastur and Ligur entered the water and swam to the middle of the lake

"I did wash, I just..." He was clearly embarrassed. "I didn't bring my own mirror."

"I have two good hands," Crowley wiggled his fingers in the air. "And two relatively functioning eyes," he took his sunglasses off and squinted at the sun. "I'll give you a shave. If you're... Amenable that is."

Crowley opted for leaving Aziraphale to ponder over his offer and began undressing. Hastur and Ligur reached the opposite bank where they basked in the sun and clean sand. Aziraphale's horse decided they knew better and trotted around the lake to where the bears were.

It had been bugging him. And it wasn't a real delay. And Crowley was wearing progressively less things and Aziraphale wondered if he'd ever stop. 

He hoped he wouldn't. He feared it, too. 

With shaking hands, he undid his tunic and glanced over for reassurance. "I... Would be grateful for your assistance."

"Just so we are clear, my assistance with undressing? You can't even undress yourself?" Crowley wasn't mocking though, his eyes glimmered with humour and his smile was kind and sincere. And he was at this point completely naked.

"Uhm. I can undress myself. It's more that... Most... Adults don't undress entirely unless they're... You know." 

The knight was fighting to keep his eyes up, and though he stripped rapidly, he cupped himself in his hands and strode into the water. And then turned around and walked right back out. "THAT IS TOO COLD."

"Unless they are what? Wash themselves?.. Oh... OH..." The realization dawned on Crowley heavily. "I see." He looked down at himself. "Well, I'm alright, feel free to ogle, if you like what you see." He winked and calmly walked into the water. "You need to get in and let it... Let it take you. It's not so bad when you get used to it." He dove under water and emerged spluttering. "Could you fetch the soap? It's in my bag, the pocket on the right.

"Uhm. Yes. I mean. Where I'm from. It's." Not the done thing. Except maybe for the ones who trained and fought, but Aziraphale had never been one of those. 

He kept one hand over his crotch and turned, waddling painfully to the bag, and realising his whole ass was on display. "It's not that I do or don't like, it's just... I'm... It's not what I'm used to," he called over his shoulder, then crouched awkwardly to get into the bag. Exposing more butt. And then wiggle walked back to toe slowly further in. "I don't know how you haven't shriveled up to a raisin!" he wailed, clearly suffering as he tried to go deeper than his calves.

Crowley waddled closer and -- Aziraphale thought he was reaching for the soap so he extended his hand -- gently held Aziraphale's fingers and pulled him in. "It's alright, angel, I promise... Here, come here," he kept pulling Aziraphale deeper. "Now. Have a swim, get used to it, there's enough soap for many washes to come." And he let go of Aziraphale's hand.

"I do not normally bathe in such cold water," the knight huffed, realising how spoilt he was, but he let himself be pulled. And then made a dour face, before dunking himself and then jumping up with a small, shrill scream. "Ahhh! That stings!"

Yes, he was being a whiny baby, but hey, he was at least joining in. He tried to swim a little, through seizing limbs, and then resorted to a frumpy float nearby. "I suppose you think I am a hideously pampered thing. Well. I am."

Crowley soaped himself, quickly and a bit furiously for some reason... He swam to Aziraphale and grabbed him pulling him close again. "You are a sweet, kind, gentle and beautiful man, Aziraphale," he said looking the knight in the eye as he softly soaped his hair. "If you're so pampered, I'm only happy to pamper you more," he smiled. "You want me to pamper you?" He asked, suddenly serene and oblivious to the way his words might have been understood.

Oh dear. Aziraphale wanted to dunk his head under the water to hide, because it was suddenly beetroot red. And blinking far too rapidly at the sudden change. What was it? Had the fever made him crazy? He was being nice... maybe he meant to mock him for believing in it? He blinked even harder still, telling himself he was foolish for even thinking it could be real. (Or hoping it, either.) "Please, don't mock me?" he whispered. "I'm soft, and I'm a bad noble, and I don't fit in here, as much as I don't fit in at the palace. But please - don't mock me. I - I would very much like to have one friend."

"I'm not mocking you, angel." Crowley held up his hand with the soap in it. "I'm sure you can do it on your own, but I... I want to take care of you, if I may... You're the only noble among them. You could have shackled me and dragged me on the rope, mocking and humiliating me. But you warmed me at night and you shared your food with me and you... You like me." He chuckled incredulously.

"....if dragons like you then why wouldn't I?" Aziraphale turned his face aside. "And if I'm the height of nobility, then what does that say for our kingdom and people? I'm a disgrace who gave away his dragon to - to save someone else's love - and..." Nope. Stop. Stop. Don't think about Alexandria. 

"You aren't allowed to wash me, unless I also wash you. Otherwise, it isn't fair."

"But I washed myself already," Crowley was confused. "And I want to wash you and shave you and..." He took a very strange breath, as if he had forgotten how to breathe at all. 

He looked at the soap in his hand at Aziraphale's quickly drying curls. "You'll need to dunk again, so that I can wash your hair. Or so that you can wash your hair... You just talk to them, you know? The... The grieving dragons. Nobody should be left alone in their grief. They don't speak your language unless you're bonded with them... Or so I heard... How does it feel, to bond with a dragon?" He was forgetting himself and began to soap Aziraphale's neck and shoulders, careful touches, barely a hint of fingers over the soap, lifted Aziraphale's arm to soap it and the armpit and did the same with the other arm. Absent-mindedly washed the knight's chest and abruptly stopped.

"It's still not fair," Aziraphale protested, as he went brighter still and whimpered when fingers grazed over cold-sharp nipples. He took hold of the hand with the soap, and prised it out and into his own hand. "Besides. You can never be clean enough." His eyes became distant, looking into a memory, a painful one. "It's not speech, so much. It's not... like there's sentences inside your head. When I think inside my head, usually it's in words. But they think in... maybe it's a language, but one we don't know. It's. Sensation. Emotion. Drives, desires. They are just as intelligent as we are, they simply... experience and relate in different ways. And when they are happy, it's like you're twice as happy as you've ever been. And when you are sad... you know you're different, but you feel it as if it's you..."

"Hey, hey, no one has ever washed me," Crowley protested but faced with Aziraphale's reproachful look and pout he stopped talking for a moment. It was quite a lot of touch for him, maybe the most he had ever got... That was, the gentle touch. He'd got plenty of the rougher kind. 

"That's... That's what I thought. But they still understand you, you know? When I met Bentley, I... I was tired and didn't care much for anything, but she was so beautiful... It was something like seeing you for the first time, you know?" He kept looking at Aziraphale like it was the most natural thing to do when saying such words (and he was right, only he didn't know it). "So... I came closer and said I recognized her, that I know she's sad, she's grieving, that no one had talked to her in a while. I said that nobody had talked to me in a while as well. And... It sounds so stupidly simple, but that's it, more or less. Some dragons like music so I sing or play for them... Some like that being touched and pampered... Like you!" He laughed. "But the first thing is always talking to them... Taking their grief into account... Do I make any sense? I'm not a natural teacher..."

"Well, just because it's never been done, doesn't mean it never should. And also, there must be a first time for anything that becomes... normal." Though Aziraphale was forcing his hand not to shake because he didn't touch people. Not really. And definitely not naked people. With soap. He started with his shoulders, trying not to admire the wiry cord of them, or how strong he knew they really were. 

"Some things are... instinctual," he said. "And universal." Thinking of the bears, it extended wider than he had once imagined. "You can understand her, when she wants things, or communicates things. She can understand you. It's simply that, with - with a bond, you can _feel_ it, as well as know it. You love them. They love you. But you can feel it, not just know it..." 

His hand paused, as he tried to process it. "It's like dragon-language. Some things are... deeper than words, or - or we lack them, but we... understand all the same."

"Like, languages have different ways of describing the world, right?" Crowley waved his hands excitedly. "And... And... I've never bonded with a dragon. Maybe your lot is right. Not worthy." He looked aside, sad.

"No. It's..." He shook his head. "I'm rather sure Gabriel is borderline not. And - well - they don't even agree with all of us. It's just we get taken to the cavern, and the dragons who are ready... they are there. I don't know if they mate, or - or what - but they only seem to bond in the cavern. Perhaps they go back there, when they are ready? You wouldn't be able to know for sure, unless you went inside." One hand came down on his shoulder, solidly. "Surely talking with feral ones, who aren't ready to go through the pain again, would be much more empathetic of you, than one who is ready and willing?"

"Why would they be willing though? Is it like... Spiritual heat? They don't need us like we need them... I think." Crowley snatched the soap from Aziraphale, dunked them both and pulled the knight, spluttering and cursing, to the beach. "Angel, your lips are blue, come on," Crowley said, unrelenting.

Aziraphale was chattering, and juddering, as he let himself be pulled again. And he forgot, for a moment, that he wasn't dressed. "It isn't... a n-necessity... but it's... w-why would you deny yourself the c-chance to be so close to some other being if it... was so g-good? T-they seem to truly care for us... Alexandria even c-c-cared for Eve!"

Crowley threw his cloak over Aziraphale's shoulders and swiftly dressed himself. 

"Sit down," he said. "The ground is warm, it'll help..." 

He began the fire and the bears and the horse returned. Hastur and Ligur were a bit sleepy and the horse seemed tired. All were enjoying the warmth. Crowley was boiling some water and making the foam for Aziraphale's shave. He was nothing but determined.

Aziraphale gladly wrapped himself up in the cloak, cuddling it around his shoulders, blushing even more at the way he could smell Crowley. Aziraphale really was smitten and he could not in conscience deny it. Not that it would get him anywhere, but long, drawn out aching. 

"You would like her. Alexandria. She would like you, too. She always knew if someone was decent or not. Didn't make any outward sign, but I could feel it."

Crowley hummed and nodded, either passionately or absent-mindedly. 

Then his legs were around Aziraphale as he sat on a log behind the knight, and his hands pulled Aziraphale's head back and he began spreading the foam over Aziraphale's red cheeks and chin. 

He kept humming, his knees were rocking, and he looked down at the knight with unashamed, untarnished affection.

From this angle, it was impossible not to look up at him. Aziraphale's eyes were wide, blue, and searching. He tugged the cloak shut across his lap, wondering what on earth the man was thinking, looking at him like that? What did he see? A silly old sod, is what. He bit his tongue, muffling the slight, but rattling moan at the touches. 

"S-shave everyone who gets sent to - uh - kidnap you?"

"Don't be funny, angel, I really don't want to cut you," replied Crowley removing his gaze to the razor in his hand. "Besides, you popped my cherry. Nobody has ever kidnapped me."

"Well. You're my first, too," Aziraphale said, with an awkward smile. "Hostage, I mean. Victim. I - mostly spent my time in my study, since..." He reached up, one finger touching the other man's wrist. "Prove him wrong, Crowley. Please. Prove them all wrong."

Crowley stopped and stared at Aziraphale. He stared and stared and stared. He tried to form some words which came out as some distressed noises. 

The forest suddenly was alive with countless birds, the woodpeckers being indeed rather mad. 

"Oh finally!" Hastur raised his paws dramatically over his head. Crowley grinned down at Aziraphale.

"But I have such a wonderful Requiem sung for me!"

"Please will you bury me in the lake, just - just tie stones to me, it will be quicker," Aziraphale whined, and slammed his hands over his eyes. "Tell them it was a glorious death."

"Hey, princeling, don't steal my funeral! Arrange for your own funeral. Can't rob me off that too... Gave up quite a lot already."

"So you're not going to weep over my grave?" Aziraphale complained, peeking through his fingers. "Or, you know. It could be neither of us...?"

"So you mean all those handsome buggers neither of which could hold a candle over you, are rejoicing in Gabriel's possible demise?" Crowley returned to shaving Aziraphale. "Wicked angel. He's your brother after all... Doubt you'll ever pick the likes of me for a family." He pensively wiped Aziraphale's face with a clean cloth.

"Well, I did decide to subvert his plans in your favour, before I even met you. And even though I'm your nominal enemy, you have far more in common with me - and have been far nicer to me - than any of my blood relatives. I could do a lot worse indeed." Expressiveness about things like this was not one of his strong points. He had been keeping everything under his breath for decades, after all.


	4. Lord of my love to whom in vassalage...

Crowley woke up to the soft apple-smelling blond curls in his face. It wasn't as bad as Hastur rolling his eyes might have suggested. He took in his... Position. Aziraphale slept in his arms, calm and smiling. If the knight wanted to chide Crowley for spooning a noble, he now had every reason to do so.

Crowley raised his head. The world had very much shrunk to Aziraphale for a moment, and wasn't that... Strange? 

"Angel, you gotta wake up. My arm is asleep." Crowley whispered, far softer than he intended.

"Mnf, bed is for sleep." Aziraphale pulled said arm tighter into his chest, to illustrate his point. And then pushed his butt backwards. Because it was nice to do it.

Crowley gulped. He was discovering new aspects of his body and he found them very confusing. 

"Angel... There is breakfast... There will be, I mean. And remember, there are books you wanted to look at. Isn't it tempting? I do need my arm."

The groan of complaint was guttural and the knight rolled onto his belly to free the arm, which left Crowley free and his ass saluting the tent. "Mmm. 'kay."

"Come... You need to wash your face. I definitely will dunk you in the lake if you don't get up." Crowley was trying to hold his bubbling laughter.

"Nosso bad." Aziraphale turned his head only, and smiled sleepily. "Liked it. But books good." He stretched his toes and fingers, elongating like a cat, then started to pull himself together. "What's breakfast?"

Nobody answered. In fact everything was eerily quiet.

Then Aziraphale had a lapful... No, a full length bodyful of Crowley who smooched his cheek, held him tight, said "hey angel" and was far away by the fire chatting with Hastur and Ligur.

The bears demanded five digits prime numbers.

"Wait... Wait... Can I fucking cut the sausage? I want it fried and crispy... And you guys promised me more apples. It's gonna be so yummy... Make it a prime number!" Crowley laughed as the bears grumpily went into the forest for apples. "Chestnuts are good too!" He yelled.

Aziraphale was stunned into silence. What the fuck. What the FUCK. What the--

He put his hand over his cheek and blushed so hard he was sure his hair changed colour, and then shoved his head into the pillow he'd been using to muffle a small scream. 

What. The. 

KISSING?

It was friend-kissing, right? Like. Like friends who got naked and then washed you and shaved you and...

Aziraphale shoved his crotch at the ground with a whimper, willing the stirring response to go the fuck away. No! He had a mission. And he couldn't go around falling in - er - with people. Who may, potentially, die. And who would absolutely not be considered appropriate. And why was he even thinking about it? And how did he--

He peeked up, to see a blade coming down over something long and meaty, and he winced, and slammed his thighs together, and that helped. Sort of. Also not. Crowley was... a MONSTER.

Crowley whistled something, Aziraphale's horse came by to nuzzle his hair, and he laughed at her too and let the bloody fucking horse lick his face. "Now, behave, alright? I want to make your master breakfast, yeah? The bears will bring enough apples for all of us... Fuck! It tickles!" He laughed as the horse went on licking him. "I will stink... You... Affectionate animal! No, I can't give you my sausage! You're a horse, for fuck's sake. Let me cut it into the pot and then..." He laughed again. "Then you can smooch me all you like!"

"Who are you smooching NOW?" came the snuffy voice from where Aziraphale was mortifiedly trying to become one with the grass. "Have you no shame, you serpent?"

"Who the fuck are you talking to, angel?" Crowley inquired. The sausage was all cut and in the pot over fire. 

And Crowley was undressing, again.

"You, horse, destroyed all my washing! I'll have to do it again."

Crowley ran into the water, bare-arsed, shameless and somehow extraordinarily happy about it all.

"Watch the sausage!" Yelled Crowley from the middle of the lake and dove back again.

"Well I can't if you run away with it," Aziraphale muttered to himself, and grumped over to the pot. Naked people should not - run around and - be naked. Like that. It was wrong. And now his horse was--

"I don't know what you're looking at. And I don't know what's gotten into him. And I'm fairly sure I've gone insane, and now I am talking to my horse."

The horse wailed like an abandoned lover and rushed to the water.

Crowley paid her no attention whatsoever and just enjoyed himself.

Hastur dropped seven apples into the pot and looked at them critically.

"Do you think he meant a bigger prime number?" He asked, addressing Aziraphale without spite for the first time.

"Hmm? No, I don't think so. That's a good amount, thank you," Aziraphale replied, a little distracted. "Is - is he normally like this?"

"Like what?" Demanded Hastur. He, apparently, had no qualms whatsoever about morning skin dipping in chilly lakes.

"...bouncing around, naked, and talking to horses, and... kissing things?"

"Ehm... No." Hastur concluded. "But he'd never had a horse, mind you."

Ligur walked out of the forest with a raspberry bush in his teeth.

"You guys are the best!" Crowley exclaimed. He was trying to get into his clothes while soaking wet. "Raspberries! And sausage! And apples! Brilliant!" He sauntered over to the fire, grabbed a half cooked apple out of the pot, picked some berries off the bush Ligur had brought and sat cross-legged, chewing loudly and looking giddy.

"I have decided the reason you can tame dragons is because you  _ are _ one, or, at least, as uninhibited as one." Didn't he realise just how insanely he was behaving? Apparently not. Aziraphale sat down, his eyes darting back and forth between food and - well - food. 

"Perhaps those rumours about you are true. If you're part dragon, why on earth would you bond with one?"

Crowley pensively chewed. "Interesting... I like to think I can tame dragons because I'm clever and very handsome!" He winked. 

"Come," demanded Hastur while Ligur looked reproachfully. 

"Oh... Alright... Hm... 11939!" Crowley announced, very pleased with himself.

"I would hope the dragons are not picking humans based on their aesthetic appearance. If so, mine will have been defective." Aziraphale bit his lip, and folded his arms. "This is all very pleasant, but it is not helping with the progress."

"You're an idiot, angel." Crowley got up to his feet gathering things and packing them. "You're a bloody idiot!" 

The bag was on his back, greasy pot and all, and he determinedly walked into the nearest tree and fell back to the ground.

"Crowley! I am trying to  _ save _ you! Why are you being so obstinate? Are you afraid of Gabriel?" Aziraphale followed, and dropped to a kneel beside him. "We need to get a wiggle on. We need to pool our knowledge, and we need to be bold. Dao will not listen to you if you are afraid of him."

"Who said I'm afraid of Dao? Dao and I are oooold buddies!" Crowley, with some difficulty admittedly, got to his feet.

"This is all your fault!" Accused Hastur, passing by. "He was just fine. And now he's all... Like... " _ Oh angel books dragons let me walk to my death _ "."

"If you're such old buddies with Dao, you would be laughing your way to the palace to burn my brother to a cinder." Aziraphale's fists touched his hips as his nose lifted into the air. "You are delaying. I know, because I do the same thing. So. Ask your bear friend nicely, get moving, and show everyone that you're better than they think you are. Or - or - I will walk up to Dao on my own and see if he sets my head on fire!"

"You are indeed an idiot. Dao would love you, you... They always missed some kindness in their life." Crowley walked and walked, a bear by each side. Aziraphale's horse was definitely jealous.

"Then let's show them. And stop with this - this morbid fascination with death. You're not going to die, and if you are, I'll be right alongside you so you can tell me that you told me so." He tried to mount the horse, who was now having none of it, and then put his face into the saddle to scream again. "Every time I think I'm getting through to you..." He swung up, forcefully, wincing at how it hurt his ankle.

Crowley's arms were around him, again, lifting him into the saddle. Now both bears rolled their eyes.

"What? He's hurt!" Crowley argued.

Aziraphale grabbed the front of Crowley's shirt, dragging him closer to the horse before he could retreat. And tugging him nearly to his face, which was when he lost what nerve he'd built up. "Promise me you're going to stop deciding you've lost before you even start. Promise me!"

"Do what you meant to, and I will!" Crowley answered seriously. "Do it, angel! I think I'm worth it. I think you are definitely worth it."

"Do - what?" Aziraphale still had hold of his shirt. "What? I'm doing everything I know how!"

"Of course," Crowley said softly. He pried Aziraphale's fingers off his shirt. "I'm right here, angel... Fuck, when have I become so... Pliant!" 

But Crowley stayed by Aziraphale's side all the way to the cabin, much to the chagrin of Hastur and Ligur.

"If this is you pliant," Aziraphale replied, but he felt calmer with him close. Or, maybe not calmer, but better. His heart didn't stop racing, even when they finally arrived. 

He dismounted - a hand taking the offered help - and started to stride as steadily as he could to the cabin. "I wonder how many things we can carry. And how many treatises are scattered, missing the purge, but waiting to be found..."

"You'll have to tell me about that purge some day," Crowley said, stepping carefully behind Aziraphale. 

Crowley looked back at the bears. They seemed rather uncomfortable all of the sudden.

"Oh, of course I will, you see it was about three generations ago, and--" Aziraphale opened the door, to a sudden, eldritch shriek.

"Come to ROB ME, HAVE YE? I'll NO LET YE!"

The man inside - dishevelled and wild - picked up a stick and thrust it towards them.

"Oh, my!"

Crowley instinctively stepped in front of Aziraphale. 

"No farther!" He demanded.

"Crowley!" the knight grabbed at Crowley's elbow, slightly hiding behind him, but also trying to tug him back. 

"Ye'll no tak me alive!" And then there was a rush of flames from the staff.

"CROWLEY!"

Crowley rather unceremoniously pushed Aziraphale out of the door.

"Take him away!" He yelled to the bears. "Take him away from the fire!"

Aziraphale felt the sudden grip of teeth into his collar, as he was scruffed off his feet. His limbs flailed even as he was dragged away. "NO! No! We can't let him get hurt! LET ME DOWN, BEAR! LET ME DOWN! I NEED TO SAVE HIM!"

Hastur kept tugging Aziraphale along and then he was in the paws of Ligur who shushed him seriously.

"That one was marked for death long ago!" Hastur grumped. "He said we needed to save you. So we save you."

"NO!" Aziraphale said, and bit at the paw near his mouth, fighting like his own life depended on it. "He can't! No! There's not enough good people! I can't lose him - LET GO OF ME! I - I - DON'T LET HIM DIE!"

"Shut up!" Hastur demanded. "Learn to respect the others! He wanted you to live!"

"So why does he get that and I don't?" He had worn himself out fighting, and flopped in terrified exhaustion. "Please... I have no one else. No one. I don't want to lose anyone again. I can't. I  _ can't _ ." He started to sob, his chest aching.

There were some frantic coughs not far from him. The coughs grew closer, and then there was a loud thud. "A little... Commoner's miracle of my own!" Said the familiar voice, then coughs and laughs mixed together rather indistinguishably.

Aziraphale didn't care. Nothing was holding him back, not bears, dragons, or the weight of the world itself. He threw himself at the soot-stained wobble coming towards them, and a well-rounded figure was suddenly wrapped around him, with a wordless squeal and kisses all over his face. "CROWLEY! YOU'RE ALIVE!"

"Yes... Sure... Why wouldn't I be?" Crowley laughed rather unconvincingly. He patted Aziraphale on the back. "Yeah... I'm... I'm good. Got you books, well, most of them..."

"You foolish, foolish fellow! I was so afraid. So desperately afraid. Please, don't ever scare me like that again! NO books are more important than your life - you - you are very dear to me, and I was so frightfully sure I had lost you!" He stopped smothering his face in kisses, but only because he was weeping into his shoulder. "You beastly, beastly man!"

Crowley considered making a joke out of Aziraphale's rumblings, considered smirking and laughing it all off, but instead he held Aziraphale back and touched his hair and neck and shoulders, and greedily breathed in Aziraphale's smell... 

Crowley was nobody's son or brother, but he felt clearly in the few moments that Aziraphale, a prince, a knight, was clinging to him, that he did have a family. He had a fussy spouse who he'd die for, he had two magnificent bears as... Friends or cousins. He was happy, for a few fleeting moments, trying to hold off his coughs, trying to memorize the way Aziraphale embraced him and kissed his sooty face. He was loved, he belonged, and it wasn't like with Pepper, no, it was something different, something absolute, something he hadn't even known he wanted... Maybe he didn't want it, but Aziraphale smelled so good and...

"What is that?" Required Hastur. "You two wanna mate, then mate. What is it all about?"

The knight froze, then turned to glare over his shoulder at Hastur. "How very crude of you. He risked his life for books for me, and that's all you can think of?" 

Admittedly he was attractive, very much so. And Aziraphale had very much enjoyed having the soft touches, caresses, cuddles... but right now, the only thing on his mind was making sure the idiot didn't go and risk himself again. "I don't know how bears - ah - court, but we do not simply go around - rubbing parts together!" Or, he didn't, anyway. 

Did Crowley? He squeezed one more time to show he wasn't embarrassed (a lie, but he wasn't so embarrassed he wouldn't do it), and then took a half step back. "Ignore them. And - and - don't do it again!"

"Why should I ignore them? They're friends! And they see things as they... See things. Nothing personal."

Crowley left Aziraphale's embrace and rushed to the bears who hugged him and told him they were worried sick and what the hell the next prime number was, and Crowley laughed with them. Ligur brought him some fresh water from a nearby brook, while Hastur licked his face clean -- Crowley laughed and spluttered and laughed again.

"Wanna mate, mate!" Repeated Hastur having cleaned Crowley. "All this... Eating is just stupid."

Crowley rolled on his back laughing.

To distract himself from the very inappropriate bears, Aziraphale got the books, and started to brush the spines down, cooing gently as he found several he hadn't seen before, and at least one that had been referenced in his reading. He was absolutely not thinking about anything - well - crude. Or the fact that he'd got soot all over himself from launching at the moron.

"Why doesn't he want to mate with you?" Hastur asked Crowley. "You're good! What is wrong with him?"

Crowley was weak with laughter and couldn't say a word in reply.

"I don't get it either," said Ligur softly. "Oh... You breathed in too much soot... Must have clouded your judgement. I see! The next number though?"

"19391..." Crowley managed. Aziraphale's horse came by to give him an additional lick.

"Have you quite finished your - your orgy over there?" came the snooty question. "I would rather like to get as far away from here as possible."

"Our orgy?" Ligur was scandalised. "We are perfectly fine! We aren't ogling from afar. We cherish open communication!"

Crowley finally stood up wiping all the saliva off his face. "Oh... Oh... That was hilarious!" He hugged Hastur and then Ligur. "Thanks for dragging him away. You're the best. I have no idea who that fucker was but please, do be careful in the future, alright?"

"Why did he eat your face though?" Hastur demanded. "You don't have much meat on you."

"It was a sign of AFFECTION, and you could always ASK ME!" Bears. Were they all this insufferable?

"Alright. Why did you eat his face?" Hastur looked at Aziraphale.

"I just told you. I was relieved he was safe and sound. It's - it's not eating, it's a form of greeting." The knight ran a hand through his own hair. "I wanted him to know, and - and - I needed to know he was really there."

Hastur just shook his head. He didn't seem to believe Aziraphale in the slightest.

"Look. Bears have their customs, Humans have theirs. I'm sure we both would find things... Unusual. It's... It's like grooming? Socially?'

Crowley was wheezing on the ground again and Ligur nudged him a bit, fondly. 

"He groomed you yesterday," Hastur remarked. "That thing... When he helped you get rid of your fur."

"Yes! Precisely. And... Don't you ever... Hug or... things, when you're glad to see someone? I mean..." 

Uhoh. "Are you two... Friends? Family?"

"We're friends. Family." Hastur replied, puzzled. "We do hug. But what you did to Crowley... That was bloody mating!"

"No! It... No. That's when clothes are off and bits are touching, or so I'm reliably informed. We... We're a social species, and I'm sure I'm far too stuffy and entitled for him, anyway."

"I don't get it," Hastur was really confused. Ligur and Crowley walked away and chatted among the trees gathering mushrooms.

"It's... Er. My family were rather dreadful to him. And even though I want him to win, I'm technically taking him somewhere dangerous, and he's... I just don't think he'd be... You know. Interested?"

Why was he asking a bear for love advice, when the bear didn't even understand kissing?

"Hasn't he got... Uhm. Friends of a special nature? Like... Isn't he with anyone?"

"Angel, start the fire, please!" Called Crowley.

"He's with us," said Hastur as if it was obvious (wasn't it?).

"Yes, yes, alright...." He huffed at the fusspot. But then, quieter. 

"...I meant, ah, is he...  _ With _ with?"

"He is  _ with _ with us," Hastur nodded, progressively more confused.

Bother. "I meant is he involved with anyone?" The longer this went on, the more likely he would overhear.

"Yes. With us. Very much involved with you, if I may say so. Too much." Hastur sat on his bum and looked gloomily at his belly.

"So he hasn't - ah - no... cubs? Or... you know what, nevermind." The knight chewed the inside of his mouth, trying to work out why it even mattered. It wasn't as if they could do anything. Be anything. But still, the thought of someone else getting to do, or be things with Crowley was leaving a foul taste in his mouth. 

"We did not get off to the best of starts. I apologise for being afraid of you, but you must admit you are rather impressive figures. May we start over?"

Hastur was a thorough bear, he wouldn't let go easily, so he didn't. However he sounded friendlier when he said:

"Oh, that's an easy mistake to make... I guess. Crowley isn't a bear. He's a human, like you. He has them cubs... Human cubs. Loves them a lot... Although he hasn't ever been half as silly with them as he's with you."

Crowley returned with a bouquet of sticks with mushrooms on them.

"Angel, I asked for some fire. I wanted to make roasted mushrooms!" Crowley was smiling despite his presumably harsh voice. He started the fire.

"...you have children?" He was supposed to sound nonchalant and easy-going, but it came out a little strangled. "And I like food as much as anyone - but it's much nicer when it's made for you. Why can't we go to an inn?"

"The nearest inn is still a few days away," replied Crowley. "I told you I do. I flew away to part with them, remember? They are alright! Their parents will take care of them."

"If you mean Pepper, she will take care of them, not the other way round!" Ligur laughed and Hastur joined him.

"...so they aren't  _ yours _ yours?" Why were they so impossible at answering anything? "Hastur said you had a family."

"I do have a family... oh... You only think of blood relatives! Well... Blood relations I don't have. But I have a big family. I do..." Crowley was roasting the mushrooms. He looked nonchalant and apparently didn't think anything about what he was saying could be unusual.

"I... see." Aziraphale did not see. "Well, thanks for clearing that up." To even more muddy waters. He sat as primly as he could. "Isn't it a jolly nice day today?"

"Seems so," replied Crowley. He handed the bears their food and brought some to Aziraphale as well. "Wait... Are you trying to ask whether I'm... Available?" He smirked coyly.

"I was simply making polite conversation. Anyway, if you had dependants, should anything happen, it would be my obligation to ensure they were provided for." The lie was easy to spin. It came to his family naturally, and he hated himself for it.

"You're talking utter bullshit, Aziraphale. Your lot won't let you take care of my people unless you join them, and it will be very difficult to do so, if I'm dead. I'm quite... Loved, you know." Crowley sat next to Aziraphale and began to munch on his meal. "I am available by the way, especially to you." And he continued eating calmly.

"They wouldn't need to know! They have no idea what I'm doing most of the time, and they want to keep it that way, and so do I! I can render financial support if nothing else, and - oh, please don't mock me." He hid his face in his food, or as close as he could get to it. "You detest me."

"I'm not mocking you. I'm available, you are beautiful, it's not that difficult to digest." Crowley said with a shrug. In his opinion, the last thing he needed to be ashamed of, was love.

"I - but I - and we can't - ah, I--" Aziraphale shoved his boot toe into the ground until his real toe started to throb. "How would it even work - if you - meant it and weren't just - my family would never accept you, and as you're quick to point out I'm not made for  _ your _ life and-- you do realise it's utterly ridiculous?"

"No, I don't." Crowley finished eating and looked at Aziraphale with that open, sincere expression of his handsome face that made Aziraphale's insides do all sorts of wicked ballroom dancing. "Even if it all ends up in a pile of burning goo, we can go off together, join my lot, find ourselves a better place to live."

"...but my family would never let us! They wouldn't just let us leave. You don't know what you're asking. Gabriel is  _ not _ the kind to just... forget we exist. He'd hunt us down to make examples of us. I don't want to fight. I don't want to run. Maybe - maybe we try to make an arrangement with him?" 

Because, as far as the knight could see, running would be hell. Always looking over their shoulders, always unwanted, unwelcome. Even worse than he already was.

"I don't give a damn about your family, to be honest, and trust me, they won't be in power forever." Crowley stood up. The bears looked at him -- and suddenly nodded.

Before long they said their goodbyes and parted ways. 

"I'll miss them dearly..." Crowley said. "But it's alright. I will see them again!" And he walked forward whistling.

"... Why did you send them away?" Aziraphale asked, trotting after him. "And... What do you mean? Are you planning something?"

"I sent them away because while I trust you with my life, I don't trust you with the lives of those I hold dear, even with your own. You already know more than I would have liked... I'll tell you everything before they throw me to Dao, I swear." He barely looked back.

Aziraphale reached for his hand. "Us. Not you. 'Us'."

"No, angel. No way you enter Dao's pit with me." He squeezed Aziraphale's hand. "And maybe... Maybe you'll want to help me in another way... But I prefer Dao eats me and me alone. Let the old serpent choke on my bones!"

"I lost Alexandria and it nearly killed me. If I lose you, too, it will. I don't want to... To live in a world without you. So you can't stop me." Fire was rising in his gorge, a feeling he'd known best with his Ryu.

Crowley yanked Aziraphale down by the hand he was holding and put another hand on the back of Aziraphale's neck. The horse politely stopped. Crowley took a breath and kissed Aziraphale on the lips, hot, open-mouthed and wet.

People did not kiss Aziraphale. He was aware kissing happened, just not to him, and he nearly fell off the horse when Crowley man-handled him, and then again when there was a mouth against his. He had no idea what he should be doing, but one leg was out of the stirrups and kicking in the air for balance, and his other hand was on Crowley's shoulder, and he hoped he was doing enough of the right thing because he opened his own mouth in shock and made a weird noise of delight that sounded a lot worse when muffled.

The horse continued to stand politely and looked anywhere but at Crowley or her master, but then she felt her back was empty... And she couldn't help turning her head to see what was going on.

Crowley pulled Aziraphale off of the horse, swayed them around and pressed Aziraphale into the nearest tree. 

He held the knight tight and close, and once his face wasn't enough, he moved over to Aziraphale's neck, both surprised and relieved that Aziraphale didn't seem to mind and instead rewarded Crowley with soft moans. 

He buried his fingers in Aziraphale's hair and returned to kissing his lips.

Maybe he should be saying something, but he had warm, sure hands and lips on him, and he grabbed at Crowley's shoulders, making sure he pulled him in as close as he could, terrified he might explode away or something, right when his heart was five sizes what it should be. 

His other hand went to the small of his back, gliding just that little bit lower, until he was pulling away from his lips to rasp his breath into Crowley's shoulder. "You're  _ certain _ you're available?"

"I'm adamant," Crowley replied softly moving Aziraphale's collar out of his way with such gentle touches it was rather difficult to breathe. "As available as air." He kissed Aziraphale's lips again.

Well, he might not know precisely the protocol - his tuition had been rather vague and mostly about continuing bloodlines, with the expectation that he'd get field experience in enjoying himself outside of that - but he at least had some idea how his own body functioned. Which meant Aziraphale could extrapolate.

And he was a fast learner. 

He put a firm, plump hand lower, and grabbed the small, perfectly shaped rump to drag it against him. And then nipped at the lips, to get him to back up just for a moment. "Consider yourself no longer free, or available. I mean. I intend to make good. However I can." He pushed their foreheads together. "Just don't die on me, and everything I can give you, I will."

Crowley put his hands on either side of Aziraphale's head. "I'll hold you to it, you know? I'll hold you to your every word, angel, and if you betray me, then... Then it will break my heart." He looked at Aziraphale, that damned sincere face, that brave vulnerability. "You think you could abandon them for me? To go with me and fight with me and stay with me?"

"Why do we have to fight?" Aziraphale asked, eyes brimming. "I can't attack anyone. I can't. There are good people, not just - not just bad. I cannot raise arms against anyone, only defend them, and fight in my own way." He searched Crowley's face, begging for understanding. "I will never betray you. Never lie to you. So I won't tell you things I cannot agree to, just to make you happy."

"I see..." Crowley took a step back. "Whoever spoke of making  _ me _ happy? Listen... I allowed you to capture me so that your wanker of a king would be calmed and more stupid than usual. Beelzebub will arrive to the capital with all my dragons, all my apprentices, Pepper as... Well as me now that I'm not there. Your lot won't be prepared. Even if you betray me thinking you're striving for peace, they will do it. See, there are so much more feral dragons out there... And I tamed every single one of them. We have more dragons, we have more people. We don't want war. We want to kick your family out and establish something new. I don't want to rule, neither does Beelzebub, mind you... But here it is, the plan. Do with it what you like. Rest assured I shall never forget my place again... You think you could placate all those people under you with empty promises and charities by the marketplace? You have no idea who the people you pretend to rule are... What was I thinking dreaming of you staying with me?" Crowley returned to the horse and stood by it. His face was unreadable.

"You are asking me - asking me to  _ attack _ people? How - how does that make what you want any different from what they want? There are innocent people in my family! People who don't know all that is going on, or who have been just as subjugated as you are! They were going to  _ force _ Eve to marry Gabriel! That's -- please, Crowley! Can't you sympathise for them, too? They have money, and food, and shelter - but that doesn't mean they are any more free than you are!"

He pulled his sleeves down, trying to cover his hands, trying to be small. His natural instinct was to run, like he'd done so many times before. Run and hide. Let others deal with the problem. Surrender his own happiness, rather than fight for it and risk worse. "You are the one betraying my faith. I came to you, honestly and openly, and you plan the rebellion anyway. How are you  _ any _ better than them? How can I trust any of you? You're better than this, Crowley! I know you are. You have to be... there's no one else who can save us all."

Crowley chuckled. "I have no intention to be better. I starved, I stole, I am a criminal myself, but I haven't abused my power, I haven't starved a soul. I haven't robbed countless children of their futures. I haven't tortured a single dragon. I'm not better that any of your lot, I'm definitely not better than you are. But I cannot abandon the people who became my family, who loved and respected me regardless of who I am. I cannot abandon my children. I... I love you, angel, but I really don't know what else there is to do other than make your family leave this land. I'm sorry."

"Then... then I will... then I will refuse to fight on either side, and - and only defend whoever needs it," he mumbled, heartbroken. "As you want someone I cannot be... I will not lie, or betray you. And I will not make false promises. I will take you there, and what happens... happens."

Crowley, unexpectedly, helped Aziraphale into the saddle with the smooth movements of a well-trained servant. He held Aziraphale's gaze.

"I should have taken you away with me that evening I was kicked out... But you wouldn't have come with me, would you? You still believe there's something good in them... After all they've done to you... Well. You didn't notice me when I was a jester, and it was so stupid of me to think that your..." Suddenly he sobbed. "Get on with it, angel. It's two days through the forest and then another ten days to the capital. I have nothing else to lose."

"...I told you, it couldn't work. You want someone I'm not," he said, and pulled the horse's reins to himself. "I refuse to believe the worst about my entire family. And as I belong to neither group, then, perhaps it is for the best that I simply facilitate your mutual destruction, but I will not join in. Please do not tell me anything more that I will need to conceal from them. It will already be hard enough, as I've given you fair warning, and you now have the advantage."

He kicked his horse gently, who didn't respond, so he kicked a second time and the mare whinnied and started to move.

Crowley walked by for a few silent and sullen moments, then stopped and held Aziraphale's hand. The horse rolled her eyes but obliged.

"Angel, I'm sorry. You are exactly whom I want. We shouldn't talk politics and policies, not now anyway. I don't want to live in the world where you are unhappy and apparently I lack all the instruments to make it better for you but... We can work it out, angel, we can, I... I believe in us. We will go there, we will tame Dao, we will, together, and we'll see, alright? I can send the word to Beelzebub to ask them to wait until my signal. Would it be better, for you?" He was begging, and his vulnerability was an open wound he wasn't ashamed of or cared to hide.

The absolutely distraught look on his face said he hated the situation, too. He pulled the hand to his lips, kissing the knuckles, and then brushing them with his thumb. 

"All I'm asking for is a chance to try. Try for a peaceful resolution, but... Be prepared for war. The decent ones will side with us. There are some. And then we will have support from both sides and it will feel... Right."

The hand was gripped harder still. "I want to make this - all of this - work. And if I'm terrified the next revolution will kill you, too, I'll never rest easily. I will defend your people, I promise."


	5. Carefree and sweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is mostly fluff with some sexy times at the end. The beginning of sexy times is literally marked with "sex begins here", and sexy times continue till the end of the chapter. Plotwise, nothing really happens here.

They traveled in silence till the sunset. 

Crowley set up the tent and prepared dinner. The meal was quiet too.

"You should rest, angel, my love," Crowley said in the end. "I... I will set up a lamp inside so that you can read, but... Just... Draw the curtain when you come, alright?" He walked into the tent.

He did not like the quiet. It was. There was too much that needed to be resolved, but couldn't be. Too much that relied upon outside influence for them to see. His fate was controlled by these forces, and so was everyone's, and Aziraphale felt truly helpless. He smiled weakly, but genuinely, and finished tidying up. 

He was nervous when he climbed into the tent, clutching the books to his chest. His own library he had in the satchel, and he offered them to Crowley to read so he could focus on the new ones.

Crowley was curled up and looked at the wall of the tent as if it had been one of Aziraphale's books.

"I... Want to hold you." Whispered Crowley and shut his eyes. "I... I never kissed anyone before you. It was... I'm not witty enough for how it was. Can I hold you while you read?"

"No one kissed me before you did," Aziraphale replied, as he gingerly moved to sit close, and inch closer still. He put a hand over the other man's, rubbing at the webbing between thumb and palm. "It was a very nice kiss, though admittedly I have nothing to judge it against. I would very much like you to hold me while I read. As long as you promise me more kisses before we sleep?"

Crowley hummed pensively. He turned to look at Aziraphale, smitten and giddy as soon as he set his eyes on the knight. "I can kiss you while you read, so that we can see how much of a scholar you are and how much of a kisser I am... Nobody before me? They are all fools! You're made for kissing!" Crowley nipped at Aziraphale's neck, pushing his collar away with the same awkward and heartbreaking tenderness he had by the tree. "You're soft. You smell good... Fuck, you smell so good! And you are beautiful..." Crowley's hand made its way from Aziraphale's waist and up his chest until Aziraphale could feel Crowley's hand in his hair. "So... Such an angel... They can't... Bloody fools... My beautiful angel."

"...you are going to distract me from my reading, reading which could save your life." Aziraphale made the most ridiculous pout humanly possible, made worse because he did actually like all those touches. He scooched until he could sit between Crowley's spread thighs, and then grabbed his hands and put them on his own knees, and pinned them under the book. 

"I'm soft, and shy, and not particularly good at noble things. And anyway, I didn't want anyone to do it, until I met you. And if you don't stop that, I won't be able to focus at all and I shall have to retaliate and kiss you back!"

Crowley looked at the whole setting, then down at Aziraphale. "Do." He said. "Now."

"And when we're both dead because we spent all our time kissing and not studying?"

"What a way to go!" Crowley mused. "It's just one more night here in the woods, in our own kingdom... Then it's all inns and class differences... But tonight... It's just us."

"No. There is no difference. Or - there won't be. If you are my partner, you are my equal. Whether it means you come up, or I go down, or both of us meet in the middle... I will not abide by anyone shaming us." Aziraphale snapped the book shut, a little close to fingers as a warning, then put it carefully down. He reached behind his shoulder, pulling Crowley's face close, and arching to kiss him. 

"We change this. All of this. And it starts with you and me."

"Whatever you say, angel," Crowley breathed, lips apart.

The knight pushed at his mouth, but the angle was not good enough, so he turned awkwardly between Crowley's knees, arched up on his own. Both hands on his face, as he urged Crowley onto his back. He wanted to lie over him and kiss him all night long.

Crowley was pliant, if only because he had no idea whatsoever what he was supposed to do, but his hands were on Aziraphale's hips and waist and chest, and each movement or lack thereof he made was in acknowledgement of Aziraphale's presence and weight and touch.

Crowley was all angles and Aziraphale had to wriggle to get comfortable on top of him. He wriggled his hips happily at the touches, and decided he would try to do that thing with their tongues again, and he pushed a hand into soft hair, squirming harder on his lap.

Crowley made a decision of doing whatever Aziraphale did, the princeling had to know better after all... So he followed Aziraphale's every move and tried to match it with his own, and other than that... Other than that he knew nothing but the touch of the pampered knight.

After a lot of kissing, Aziraphale couldn't help but notice his pants were, uh, uncomfortably tight. And he squirmed to... He was pretty sure Crowley was also feeling interested. 

So. Uhm. 

"I haven't done... You know. Either. I was always waiting for... Uhm. My wedding..."

Crowley stirred, worried. "Your wedding? Who were you going to wed?" He was heartbroken.

"Well, no one specifically. I never met anyone, I just remained open to the idea..."

"Are you still... Open?" Crowley asked, bringing his hands up to Aziraphale's face. "Because you... Know. You could... Wed me?.."

"Depends... Would you ravish me, then pretend you'd never asked, in the morning?"

"W...why would I pretend I had never asked? And what is... Ravish?"

The knight gulped. "Um. Because you wanted to... take my honour and... Then run off without going through the... Formality? You know. Seduce me and then discard me?"

Crowley was so lost for words he had apparently forgotten he could speak at all. 

"S... Disc... H... Ngk! I'm not the one walking around looking like you." 

Crowley's body felt indignant too, so he twitched in all the strange ways and incidentally kicked Aziraphale.

"Hey!" He yelped, and grabbed hold of Crowley's hips, slamming them down. "No, you swagger around looking like  _ you _ . Do you have any idea how ridiculously entrancing you are? I can barely keep my hands off you!"

Crowley looked up at Aziraphale. It was almost hateful how much of himself he allowed to be seen, to shine through his eyes. "I... I love you, angel."

"I - I love you, too." Aziraphale had never thought he'd ever say that to someone. Ever. And here he was, lying on top of this - this disgraced jester, though Aziraphale himself was no more welcome in the palace - in the middle of nowhere. Gazing at him, and confessing an affection and attraction that... "So, is that how we - I thought normally it was a little more... uhm. Considered? Should I go out and come back in?"

"Whatever for? Stay," Crowley leaned up to kiss the corner of Aziraphale's mouth. "We can still read. And talk about dragons. Anything you want. This, now, is ours and ours alone. Until dawn, it's just us."

"I meant... if I go out, I can come back in and ask you properly," he laughed, and kissed his temple. And the other. And his nose. And chin. "If you mean it... let me do it properly."

"You are nothing but proper, angel. I want you to stay. I have no idea what you are talking about. Want you to stay and... And do whatever you want."

"Then forget the entire thing, and... and tomorrow I'll do it properly." Aziraphale took Crowley's hands, and pushed them to either side of his head, arching upwards. "Can I - I mean, you've danced in the water naked... can I take your shirt off?"

"You danced with me. Of course. I could do it myself though."

"So I can watch?" Aziraphale let his hands go, and sat back. "So I can watch you show me what I'm... what I'm taking home with me?"

Crowley swiftly took his shirt off, naively unaware of his beauty.

Aziraphale sucked his lips in, and then raked his eyes over the pale skin. "Would... would you like me to?"

"If you want to." Crowley scooted back -- and took a book.

"Uh - no, it's... we can just cuddle?" He picked up a book, too, and clutched it to his chest. "I mean. We need to keep our honour, remember?"

"I don't have any," Crowley smirked. "Commoner, me."

"Well, I do. And if you intend to make an honest man out of me..." He moved to lie against him, putting a hand on his upper thigh.

"Can't make an honest man of you if I am not one myself... Although, I dare think I'm quite honest..." Crowley held Aziraphale and kissed the top of his head. The blanket was wrapped around them. 

"Tell me about the purge," he asked.

"Well, make me just as honest as you." Aziraphale snuggled in comfortably, putting his cheek on the warm chest. "There isn't much information, I've had to piece it together. In my great-grandmother's time, there was an adviser. I think he was from one of the lesser houses, from what I can tell. And it seemed he didn't manage to bond..."

He caressed the pages of the open book, looking at the illustrations. "He either didn't get the opportunity, or no one would accept him. And he wanted more power... he destroyed all the information he could. So much literature, so much knowledge... only a few books were still in the palace, and the rest are the ones I've found out in the world... but the history is clear: he was shortly after killed by a dragon. So that's karma for you."

Crowley hummed and played with Aziraphale's hair. "Please take your shirt off." He asked. 

"Do you want to tell me about Alexandria?"

Aziraphale looked up at him, hopefully. "Perhaps you could take it off for me?" He put the book to one side, very carefully. "What would you like to know about her?"

"Oh, silly me, thinking you could take your shirt off without my help," Crowley teased kindly. He pulled Aziraphale's tunic off and then positively squeaked getting to feel Aziraphale's skin against his own. "Anything... Anything you want to share."

"I can. But it's nicer to have you do it." The knight moved back to cuddle against him, and let his hands slide over Crowley's collarbone, up over his throat, down to his chest. "She was beautiful, You might think she was white, but she caught every colour of the rainbow from the air and gave it back... the minute I saw her, my heart stopped. She was... she was so intelligent... I could feel this amazing warmth coming from her. I just... wanted to wrap my arms around her neck and never let go..."

"Then you are my dragon," Crowley confessed softly. "And that's why I never bonded with any other dragon... You're sleepy, angel. Is there anything else you want to tell me?"

"I disagreed less with her than I do with you... but I'm... I definitely know... I definitely could feel something." How did he explain? "I can't do anything but follow you." 

Aziraphale pushed his nose into the soft space below his chin. "I want to tell you... everything. But if you're going to be with me for the rest of our lives... I have plenty of time to tell you everything..."

Crowley sighed. "I hope we survive all this. Otherwise I'd wish we just had stayed here... Would have built us a home..." He trailed off and was softly snoring the following moment.

"Well, we will make one. Together," he whispered, into the sleeping cuddle blanket, and then pulled the book closer. "I'll keep you safe, or die in the attempt." Which meant he had to read, just in case he could find some trick that might give them an edge. He read, until his eyes drifted closed and the lamp petered out.

They traveled through the woods for one more day and didn't make any stops to rest or eat, because Crowley promised Aziraphale they'd finally sleep in an inn. 

Once they passed the last trees, Crowley looked back wistfully.

"I wish we could stay here," he said, then shook his head and walked forwards heavily, taciturn and heartbroken.

"We'll come back. It isn't forever. And... You know it's the only way to help your friends," Aziraphale said, reassuringly. "And at least now we can have a bath!"

"For the life of mine, angel, what's the point of stale water you can't swim in? Basin is just enough when rivers and lakes are not available." Crowley shrugged.

"You've never had a nice, warm bath. Not a proper one. When you have, then you can judge." A long, pleasant sigh. "And food you don't need to cook. And big, soft beds..."

"I guess I'll have to trust you on this... Bed?" Crowley waved his hands in the air.

"You'll love it. Or, I will. Soft. Good for your back." Aziraphale leaned closer. "Good for cuddling."

Crowley turned his head and caught Aziraphale's lips in a kiss. "Well... Fucking enlighten me, you pampered tease!"

"Get on my horse for the last bit of the ride. I want to enter the village with your arms around me, and if I'm a pampered tease, then you will be, too."

Crowley chuckled. "I don't like horses. No offense," he bloody smooched Aziraphale's horse. "But they are tough on my butt and I don't want to spend an evening moaning about my buttocks being sore... Alright, angel, you win." He obligingly climbed behind Aziraphale and held him. "You happy now?"

"I will kiss them better," he promised, bubbling happily in his arms. "She's a good horse and it isn't far. Plus, everyone should see us together, if you're my intended."

"Your what? Angel, let's return to the woods, I'll build us a cabin, you'll want for nothing and we'll have lots of babies!"

"... How exactly would we have babies?" The knight craned over his shoulder. "I've seen your... plumbing."

"Seen my what?" 

"You know what's between your legs, yes? The... same as mine?"

"So what?" Crowley asked, confused.

"You need... Both... To make babies... You... You do know how babies are made, right?" Hysteria threatened to creep in.

"Ehm... Yeah... It takes two people who love each other!" Crowley proclaimed happily and squeezed Aziraphale.

"... Who have the required... Bits... You know. A man... and a woman?"

"Don't be silly, angel... I think the whole perspective of the bath has you stupid!" Decided Crowley.

Aziraphale's back stiffened, and he was clearly not happy. "I read a book. It had diagrams in. I'm not sure why no one broke this news to you, but it isn't 'love' that makes children happen!"

"Yes, it is!" Crowley replied, very much convinced.

"It most certainly is not! Wait... You don't think you hold hands and later there's a baby, do you?"

"No, of course not! There needs to be something more... Like... " Crowley concentrated - and burst out laughing. "Angel, I know where the babies come from. Don't worry, this fucking mistake of a world has enough babies for us to raise."

***

Aziraphale dismounted, but pushed Crowley to remain in the saddle to guide him to the stables.

Crowley for all his swagger and confidence seemed entirely lost in the small luxuries of a country inn. He looked around as if expecting an attack, he followed Aziraphale like the most loyal hound and he knew very little about baths, babies, proper dinner... Aziraphale was so smitten with him, it defied any logic.

Once he'd secured the room and livery, Aziraphale took Crowley up to their quarters, and then waved around. "Do make yourself at home."

Crowley looked around. "I'm not feeling at home, angel." He confessed. "What do you want me to do? I feel like I'm a jester all over again... It's better, being your jester but... I really don't know what to do..."

"Poke the bed. Look in the wardrobes. Take off your socks. Walk around. Lie on the bed. Go into the bathroom. Investigate it."

That was more like what Crowley would do, so he obliged. He poked the bed and was scared how soft it was. He walked around. He took his socks off. He went into the bathroom and decided that the bubbly, lavender smelling water wasn't for him... "Fuck it, angel, I'm lost." He sat on the floor. "I... I don't know... I... If you love me, you won't... I..." He sobbed into his hands.

"I won't what?" He dropped to his knees, hands gently reaching to rub Crowley's upper arms. "I do love you. So, tell me."

"I have no idea what to do here... I... I don't know what to do! It's not my home! I'm alright without beds and wardrobes and baths..." He sobbed harder, so utterly lost, so utterly perfect, tailored to be Aziraphale's, despite the fact that he knew nothing of how the babies were made.

He kissed his forehead. "The woods aren't my home, either. And indeed, this isn't mine. But this is just a step towards the end result... we shall find something that suits us both, soon." He kissed his head again, and then sat on the floor beside him. "We did your way. We do this way just for a little."

"What... What would you want me to do?" Crowley was still hiding his face. "I... Don't know... I love you. What would you have me do?"

"I would like you to join me for a bath, and a shave. And after, I should like you to sit and enjoy a nice meal with me. And then, I shall bring you to bed. And we shall kiss, and there'll be no more talk of children until our wedding is well and truly done. Now, how does that sound?"

"I have no idea how it sounds... But I'll do whatever you want." Crowley stood up and began to undress. "I should be naked, right?"

"For a bath, yes." He smiled, a hand on his calf, stroking up. "Please. Don't cry. We shall get through this, and find what works for us both."

"Tell me... I'm a fucking servant of yours. What should I do? I've never taken a bath. I've never slept in a bed that felt like a cloud. What... What should I do?" He glanced at Aziraphale, forcing himself to be open and vulnerable.

"Undress. Then step into the bath. Let me be your servant, so you understand." He rose slowly, offering his hand. "Let me show you how it feels to be cared for, but by someone who truly does."

Crowley sniffled. "Alright..." He took Aziraphale's hand and stood up. "I'll... Just... Undress myself and... And I'll do it. Right?"

"Would you like me to? Undress you?"

"No... No... I'm alright... Or do you want to? I fucking don't know what to do!" Crowley tossed his coat aside.

Aziraphale decided he should take executive action. And if Crowley was going to freak out, he had to help. He pushed him until his legs hit the bed, and held his hips. "Do you trust me?"

"I trust you to my death, angel. Love you also... Love you so much. Please, don't kill me."

"I shan't," he promised, and pushed him onto his back. The knight moved to straddle his hips, and bent down to kiss his forehead, his cheeks, his nose. His hands started to unfasten his shirt, and he let out a little giggle. "Mind you, valets do not normally kiss their masters..."

"Wouldn't know... Why did I have to fall in love with someone who could kill me at a single glance..." Crowley sobbed again. "What am I to you here? I could keep you safe and sound and pampered in the woods, but here..." And he sobbed again.

"Darling... you are you. Wild, wild man. Tamer of dragons. And - and my--" Aziraphale stroked Crowley's cheek with his thumb. "The man I intend to marry. If you want your cabin in the woods, we will have it. But first, you must do this."

He danced digits over his collarbones. "Trust me. You keep me safe in the woods, I will keep you safe with the wolves."

"I trust you... I love you. Love me too, alright?" Crowley begged.

"I do." Aziraphale pulled the shirt open, and kissed his way down over his chest, brushing hair across skin as he did. "Let go of the fear. Let me wrap you in my arms, and wrap you in the finest silks."

"I only want you..." Crowley asked meekly.

"You have me." He put hands on his belt, and started to unfasten it. "Touch me. Hold me. You do want this, don't you?"

"I want all of you, angel... I should have snatched you, I should have taken you with me... We'd have been wedded, and..." He sobbed again, so fragile and beautiful. "You'd have been mine..."

"I will be yours." He stopped, and dropped his head, trying to hide the fact that he was crying. "It's a bed. And a bath. Why are you so afraid of where I come from? Crowley... what aren't you saying?"

"I'm just lost, angel. I'm not used to being taken care of..." Crowley chuckled.

"You helped me, in the wild. So. Let me return that favour."

"I didn't do you a favour, angel. I... Like taking care of you and I... Like when you try to take care of me," Crowley teased. "So... Show the magic of the bath."

"Then... relax. Stop thinking about it. It's just me. I'm not going to mock you over which fork you use, or anything. Just... Relax." He helped him out of the last of his clothes, and then shimmied out of his. Utterly self-conscious, but trying not to be.

Crowley noticed it and, a gentle finger under Aziraphale's chin, made him look up. "Hey angel. You're gorgeous."

"I'm also... Uhh..." He smiled, lopsidedly. "... Not behaving like a gentleman." Or, rather, his body wasn't.

Crowley glanced down between them. "So... Should I do anything for you?"

"Ignore it?" Aziraphale looked very... Torn. "I mean. You don't have to. It's just... You're very attractive and now you're naked and... Don't get upset with me for it?"

"Why would I be upset?" Crowley pulled him along. "Aaaaalright... You get in first."

Aziraphale glanced down, noticing he wasn't alone. Oh, that was a relief. "It's never - pardon the pun - come up before."

He climbed in then sat, legs akimbo, giving him room to sit between his thighs.

Crowley, the insufferable man he was, sat in front of Aziraphale and was waiting for instructions.

The knight was not dissuaded, and picked up the bath sponge. He dunked it, then ran the fragrant soap over his partner's shoulders, before following with the sponge, humming softly as he did.

"Alright, it's not that bad, I agree. Warm, I'll give you that. But all the same... Too little water." Crowley looked around the room. "If one could fill the whole room with water, that would be awesome!" He laughed. His eyes turned dreamy and mischievous. He was considering it, he really was.

"We have swimming baths, but those aren't just for daily bathing." Aziraphale seemed oblivious to the danger, soaping his chest and enjoying letting his hands slide over taut muscles. "I will show you!"

Crowley hummed. He hummed a lot these days. Suddenly he surged forwards splashing water everywhere and grabbing Aziraphale's thighs pulled him underwater.

Aziraphale yelped, but being submerged, it ended up with inhaling water, and thrashing as he coughed and spluttered his lungs free.

"It went better in my head," said Crowley apologetically. "I'm sorry..." He was interrupted and pushed into the bath's wall.

Crowley found himself with an indignant knight, straddling his thighs and shaking out his wet hair. "Out of the bath!" His voice was still a little hoarse, and - well - sitting on top of him did make it hard for Crowley to comply. "If you can't behave yourself, I'll have to teach you manners somewhere drier!"

"Alright, alright, angel. I apologised... I can't get out of you're sitting on me!" Crowley pushed Aziraphale away, carefully this time and hopped out of the bath grabbing a towel somewhere in the flight.

Aziraphale followed, grabbed another towel, twisted it, and used it to whack at Crowley's ass. "You don't get out of it that easily, Sir Crowley!"

"Didn't know that being knighted involved ass smacking!" Crowley laughed without a care.

"Well, I left my sword by the bed. If you want it properly, dry yourself off, and kneel by the bed, and I will." Pause. "If you want me to."

"Why would I want it? I'm good as it is... I heard someone I love telling me this." Crowley smiled tenderly and sat on the bed, leaning back on his elbows and finding nothing wrong with the way he slouched... Lounged... Spread his endless legs.

"You are good enough as you are... but I thought you might enjoy walking in on my family and upsetting them all by being formally recognised as one of their number, even though they despise you." Aziraphale's eyes twinkled with mischief of his own. "They forget that I have as much power as they do." 

The knight sat alongside him, and ran a hand down his chest, then dragged his knuckles back up, and repeated it.

"Oh... That's lovely, angel." Crowley grinned like the smitten fool he was. "I don't want to be anything I am not. I'm no knight, and you are, and in the end it's great... If there's one knight worthy of the title, noble and honourable and loyal to a fault, it's you, Aziraphale..." He put one palm on Aziraphale's cheek. "Aziraphale," he whispered sweetly. "My own knight I spent several days trying to protect from cuddly bears."

**_[Sex begins here. Proceed with caution.]_ **

"And here, I defend you against the ungodly dangers of a warm bubble bath and plush bed," he teased in return, his head twisting so he could kiss the palm. "Very well, you shall just have to be my betrothed. And - there is no reason for you not to be a knight." 

He let his hand drift to his hip, chasing the jut of his pelvis. "Am I sufficiently protective, or do you still feel panic?"

Crowley shivered. "I might need more... Thorough protection. I might sink in this bed... You really aren't afraid of them, are you?"

"If you fall in, I will come after you and catch you... but you barely weigh a thing, and I never fall in..." Aziraphale laid his hand over Crowley's thigh. "What would make you feel better?"

"No idea. What would you like me to do for you, oh noble knight?" Crowley held Aziraphale by the hips and rolled them so that Aziraphale ended up laying on top of him. "You feel so good, you smell so good..."

"We're still not married... but I suppose if we're just... you know. Cuddling... then... it shouldn't be an issue." Aziraphale planted his knees, and started to rock their hips together, fighting a moan. "...if... if it helps you feel safe in the bed..."

"Angel, what the fuck are you saying and doing?" Crowley held Aziraphale to make him stop moving. "What do you want? Use words."

"I don't know words! I - look - do you want me to stop?" Aziraphale froze, worried. "Do you want me to stop?"

"No, I want you to tell me what you want... Listen, you look good enough to eat, so I could, you know, eat you." Watching Aziraphale's face twisted in shock, Crowley smirked. "I'm not as innocent after all, angel. Grew up in the slums, remember?"

"...wait. You mean you've - er - before?" Now the knight was almost purple with jealous rage. "You - did this?"

"Angel..." Crowley rolled his eyes. "I told you you're the first and mind you, the last person I've kissed. Now. What do you want? Embarrass yourself, my Aziraphale, use obscenities, use my baaaaaad words."

"You can do things without kissing." Aziraphale grabbed Crowley's hands on his own hips, and then slammed his weight into him. "I want lots of things. But I also now want to remove the genitals from anyone you might have touched. Ever." Another, fiercer rut. "Tell me. Tell me you haven't. But don't lie to me, don't you dare."

"Of course I haven't, you plum! I was a child and then your father made me a jester!" Crowley was very still, his face again so terribly open and vulnerable. "And even if I had done something... You'd love me less for having lived before we met?"

"No. But I'd still be jealous. I waited for you..." Aziraphale crinkled his nose in disgust. "Look. I can't help it. I - I haven't, and I want to, and I - want to with you, and I don't know  _ how _ , but I know I  _ do _ want to, and I-- I want you, and I'm terribly afraid of what to do, or that you'll think I'm terrible, or it won't work, and I can't even  _ say _ it because the thought of saying it makes me want to dig a hole in the woods and cover myself inside it!"

"Close your eyes, angel. Think of me... Think of me really well. Now... You don't have to look at me, but having me in your mind, what would you have me do? How can I make you feel good? How can I show you that you, Aziraphale, are the only one for me?" Crowley caressed Aziraphale's back. "I know nothing myself. But if it can help you... I would want to suck you dry. I would want to touch and kiss you everywhere. I would want to push you on your back and have my very tender and careful way with you... Because I love you, you idiot. To think, I believed I couldn't ever love someone like I love you."

Aziraphale's eyes moved under his closed lids, clearly running through the mental images, and getting more interested by the minute. The tip of a pink tongue poked out, and then he rocked more softly again, trying to get friction, trying to get contact. "W-want... your hand... on - on m-me, mine on y-you. And... do you?" His eyes opened, shockingly black, with the barest ring of blue. "Would you want to - to use your mouth? Truly?"

"How about you lie back and let me 'use my mouth'? Then you'll touch me... Or... You could, again, lie down, and I'll lie over you but my rump to your head, so that I could suck you and you could touch me... What do you think?"

Aziraphale thought his head would explode. And then his nethers. He licked his lips again, and tried to cross his ankles. "Y-yes. Do - you do want it, too, don't you?" He gently held Crowley's face in his hands, searching his eyes. "I want - I want everything. I'm just - yes! Let's - let's stop thinking, and - and - do! Before I ask too many questions... I want to be yours. And I want you to be mine. And - and--" 

He took a deep breath, and then reached between them to find Crowley's cock, stroking a little awkwardly but with no less desire for the confusion. "Can I do this, first, and you tell me what you like? Before your mouth is full?"

"I have no idea what I like, angel. So... Feel free to explore," Crowley pushed Aziraphale so that he settled next to him, and tucked his nose under Aziraphale's chin. "Just... Do anything." He reached for Aziraphale's dick and stroked it once, carefully. "See, you want me, presumably."

"Oh, oh I do... I... That was good. Do... Is it better if I..." Aziraphale barely dusted his fingers over flesh, then started each stroke with increasing firmness and speed, nuzzling at his hair. "I want you very, very much. I..." He let his knees fall wider, but then he was lifting his hips, then humping, then… "Please... I would... Like your... Your tongue... And..." He started to stroke harder still. "... Want to... To see if... If we can..."

Crowley smiled, beaming with tenderness. 

"Of course, Aziraphale... Daarrrrling..." He purred.

Crowley scooted down and took Aziraphale's cock into his mouth.

Aziraphale yelped in utterly delighted surprise, feeling the wet, wet touch, and looking down to the beautiful thing on his knees, he grabbed hold of Crowley's hair a little too hard and drummed his heels. "Oh yes, yes, please, darling yes! S-suck me, p-please!"

Crowley did, although he briefly regretted missing an opportunity to tease the knight's eventual use of obscenities. 

He tried this and that, swirled his tongue, licked and even gently bit. Overall the experience was quite pleasant. He was taking care of Aziraphale and it was much better than the other way round.

The knight was not quiet. At all. He whined, wailed, cried out and made it very clear what contact he liked, and what he  _ really _ liked. But it was getting unbearable, so good he was bouncing, and he stammered out: "If... I'm... You sh-should lllllllet me... Before I..... CROWLEY!"

Crowley's face was right above Aziraphale's the following moment, while Crowley's palm was wrapped around Aziraphale's length. 

"So, my sweet knight... I take it you enjoyed it." He chuckled into Aziraphale's lips. "Angel, I've got you."

Enjoyed? His hair was in every direction, his face streaked with blushes, his hips were still bouncing like mad, and he had almost clawed gouges into his beloved's shoulders. 

"You're... I'm going to... It's too much! It's too much!"

"Should I stop?" Crowley stopped, just in case.

"Nnnnnghhh... If... If you w-want m-me to return the favour, I'm... I don't know if..." He was panting, very, very heavily. "Want. You. But. Want...  _ You _ ."

"I'm here... I'm alright, angel. I'd love it if you touch me, but if you're too worn out, which you seem to be, it's fine."

"I... I want... Together..." Aziraphale's cock twitched from the loss of stimulation, but he didn't want this to be one sided. "You were... F-far too good and... I..." He reached, and wrapped his own hand around the other's cock. 

"I'll never be too tired to make love to you."

Crowley laughed happily. "I know what we should do, angel." He snapped Aziraphale's hand away and took them both in his own. "Like this. And you hold me, alright? Like I'm about to run into the woods."

"Why would you run?" Aziraphale asked, as he curled around Crowley, and leaned in closer. "Don't run. I need you. I - I need you..."

"Oh, I won't run, angel. Only if I have you running with me... It's a big world, angel. Why should we bother saving it..." Crowley sounded delirious and even more honest for it, completely unselfconscious, unashamed. "Why should I save anything if I have you?" He bit his lip and nuzzled Aziraphale's shoulder.

"To make sure no one takes you away from me... for all those children... for - for-- oh, don't ask me right now! Just! Keep going! Crowley, Crowley!" Aziraphale clutched his lover furiously, and started to rock forwards. "Ah, I'm - you - it's so good! Oh, I love you, I love you, I love you..."

Crowley raised his messy head. "I love you too, angel... I don't... Why can't we just stay somewhere, just us!" He came quietly and tried fighting his sobs. He had just got something, someone good in his life, someone he couldn't imagine himself without anymore and it turned out that to keep that impossibly beautiful person by his side he had to do all sorts of nasty things he didn't enjoy that much in the first place. "I... You told me you didn't want to fight... You got me. Neither do I... Want to stay with you and that's it!"

"You will... you will. You'll have me..." Aziraphale felt the weird, wet, bursting sensation and it was good, but... bittersweet. He clutched Crowley closer, and threw them both onto their sides, kissing his tears from his face. "I love you. I love you."

"I love you..." Crowley echoed. "Pepper would consider me such a sap... Adam would just laugh at me... And I love you." He grabbed his shirt from where it had landed on the bed and cleaned them both. "Would you... Like to hear about them? My kids that is."

"I would. Your kids, and your dragons." He pulled him in to snuggle up at the pillows. "I love you, too. And I want to know all about you."

"So... Pepper. I met her when she was ten. Smart thing, she is. Sharp. Witty. No authority for her. She's her own judge and her judgement is impeccable. I took her in as my apprentice. Everything I know, she knows. She's my library, and indestructible at that... Adam is her understudy. He's like her, but... Less. He is very kind though. It's his talent... I trained many but these two... They are my children."

"Have you... have you ever... did you really mean it, before, when you said you wanted... your own? I mean. I know we can't by conventional means, but... I never thought about children. Before, I mean." The knight pulled Crowley into his shoulder, and kissed at his hair. "If not, it's alright. They may not... like me... but I will help with them..."

"I don't want to talk about it now, angel, not when there's still so much to be done, to go through... I can't allow myself to dream... You think you'll ride into the palace with my arms around you and tell your wanker of a brother that you intend to spend your life with the jester your father had kicked out? You think we'll ride Dao into the sunset?" Crowley sobbed again, clutching at Aziraphale's shoulders like a man drowning. "Why would anyone up or down there give me this absolute joy only to have it taken away from me by the circumstances alone?"

"Crowley... you have done what no one else has ever done. From nothing, you've come so far... no one else has ever tamed a feral dragon, not that we know of. You can do anything.  _ Anything. _ And I will tell you, until my face is blue, that I believe in you." Aziraphale rocked them, gently, and nipped at Crowley's nose. "Don't be sad. Not when we should be happy."


	6. Gabriel's Garden Party

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: there's sex but it's easy to skip, it's properly marked. Also a nasty character gets his comeuppance which can be seen as karma porn or gruesome but not graphic death

Their trip continued in what Crowley would call wistful silence and Aziraphale wouldn't want to call at all. Both felt comfortable only at night, in each other's arms, when the joy of love defeated everything outside their tent. 

Crowley spoke little but usually began each conversation to let Aziraphale ramble along about whichever topic Crowley gave him. 

They were only a day away from the capital, when they heard dragon's wings. It was morning, and Crowley was shaving Aziraphale.

"... Crowley... Do... Do you hear that?" His hand was up, stilling the shaving.

"I thought I was going mad..." Crowley looked up. "Must be. Why would we hear a dragon here?"

"They may have sent a patrol? Hide!"

"No, I won't! We're supposed to be coming, aren't we?" Crowley stubbornly continued shaving Aziraphale.

"We're not ready!" He frowned over the foam. "We - oh no, wait - there's two... is that... is that Bentley? And--"

Crowley stood up and looked at the two approaching dots. 

"Alright, that's Bentley and that sad old dragon Beelzebub always rides... Oh fuck! Angel, I've never... It's a Ryu! I'm so dumb! Is it her?"

Aziraphale nearly fell over, falling onto his hands, staring up at the sky. "It can't be. She was with Eve. It can't be..." 

In the distance, there came a loud trill from the Ryu, as she rippled through the sky with wings spread wide. 

"Crowley, you never realised it was her?"

"No, I never did..." Crowley carelessly cleaned Aziraphale's face, his gaze trained on two dragons. "I mean... Alright, a Ryu... But... Always so sad and lost and... They never needed help with her. Angel, I'm such an idiot!" His arm was on Aziraphale's shoulder, a tender kiss on Aziraphale's temple. "But... Look. She's coming to you!!!"

"What if she is angry with me?" He tried to hide behind him, desperate to watch, but terrified and shaking. "What if she hates me?"

He didn't have long to wait, because Bentley and Alexandria landed, and before the humans had both feet on the floor, the silvery Ryu bounded over, and pushed Aziraphale onto his back. She trilled exuberantly, her tongue licking dry swipes over his cheeks, her wings flailing and tail nearly knocking Crowley onto his ass.

"Oh, oh my girl, how I've missed you!"

"Alright... That's it!" Crowley proclaimed and looked at the riders.

"Bea? What the hell are you doing here? Hi, Eve... Oh fuck... Am I that stupid! Eve!" He slapped himself.

"What?" Beelzebub asked worriedly. "What? You knew I had a wife."

Crowley was so lost for words he just opened and closed his mouth several times. "Your dragon is... Is Aziraphale's Alexandria!"

"Yes, she was kind enough to help us escape," Eve said, and reached over for her spouse's hand. "We had to keep a low profile, because we knew we were risking Aziraphale's position in court if they knew."

Aziraphale was lost to the world, jumping up to stroke her neck, tickle behind her jaw, cooing over her and checking her condition. "Oh, look, you're so dull... you poor thing, you must have been missing me... I know they looked after you... oh, I should have come to find you, but I didn't know where you were..."

Alexandria curled around him, and rested her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes to make an almost-purr. She looked closer to a gunmetal than the opalescent scales she'd once shown, but the hint of her colours were starting to gleam through. She looked up at Crowley, then clucked curiously at the knight.

"He's good, darling. But you already know, don't you?"

"Sure I'm good, I've met her..." Crowley approached Alexandria and extended a hand in invitation. "Remember me, right? I'm mad about your rider, you know?" He smiled but didn't come any closer waiting for Alexandria's response. Alexandria dipped her nose and whuffed in welcome, indicating that she would allow him to come closer. 

Crowley petted Alexandria's snout and turned to Beelzebub and Eve. "What are you doing here? We had a deal!"

"Well, your deal can go and fuck itself. We owe it to Aziraphale." Beelzebub smiled at the knight.

"Alex could tell he was near, and when we heard from Pepper that you'd gone off with him, we came to help." Eve was clearly the calmer of them. 

"But - but Gabriel will never forgive you, Eve!" Aziraphale clucked at them, still pushing his face into her neck.

Crowley was lost to the world trying to flirt, shamelessly, with Alexandria.

"Yes, I know he's wonderful... Don't give me that look! I owe Bentley a hug too, alright?" He moved over to Bentley who just pinned him to the ground to lick him into oblivion.

"Bloody hell," said Beelzebub and looked away. "We're not going with you," they squeezed Eve's hand. "We brought you Alex and that's it. Bentley is going back with us, Crowley's orders..."

Aziraphale pushed Alexandria off just long enough to run over to Eve and Beelzebub. "You two... oh, I'm so glad you're both okay..." He tried to hug both of them at once. "It was so dull without you, but I hoped you were doing well... has she looked after you? Have you had adventures?"

"We've had plenty," Beelzebub looked at their wife. "We're happy because of you, Aziraphale. We're free because of you... The least we can do is to make sure your traitor of a boyfriend is safe, as are you!"

"Not a nice word!" Yelled Crowley from under the onslaught of Bentley's affection.

"I have even worse for you," Beelzebub laughed and turned to Aziraphale. "You take Alex with you. She'll kick everyone's ass for you... And your boyfriend... News travels fast, Aziraphale. You two deserve each other."

Crowley made some unintelligible noises as Bentley licked him all over.

"Traitor?" Aziraphale huffed. "Leave him alone."

Alexandria also whuffed, and stretched her tail out, coiling it around Crowley's legs to pull him closer. Aziraphale ruffled down her back, amused. 

"And isn't it right that we should be here to help you at the start of your relationship... oh, she approves," Eve laughed, as the dragon tried to pull the two of them together.

Bentley and Alexandria tried pulling Crowley each to her side, but he jumped up and chastised both dragons.

"No! Both of you! No more licking! How is Pepper? Adam?" He turned to Beelzebub.

"Both are great. Kick everyone's ass, being their awesome selves."

"Good!" Crowley exclaimed. "Alright... So... I guess we just ride into your brother's court on Alexandria..." He giggled.

"Well... it will certainly make a statement..." Aziraphale watched as Alexandria picked Crowley up by the collar, and tried to toss him on her back. 

Eve grinned. "I think she agrees. And yes, everyone is fine. What do you need us all to do?"

Crowley, despite being tossed around by dragons, spoke with much authority to his voice. "Ask Aziraphale. I'm deemed too aggressive... So let him decide."

"Since when are you so pliant?" Beelzebub wondered. "Kissing that good?"

Crowley blushed and opted for remaining a rag doll of Bentley's and Alexandria's.

"Well, you see... all the reading I have done implies that whoever can control the king's dragon - Dao - should be considered the authority. And - ah, Crowley is much more likely to control Dao than Gabriel. So..." He shuffled. "If we can convince him beforehand... or at least, to say he agrees... then, when we show the court that Crowley can tame Dao..."

"You are relying on Gabriel being... trustworthy?" Eve snorted. 

"No. On him not wanting to lose face after being pushed into an agreement," he replied.

"Aziraphale, I love you, I owe you, you're an idiot," concluded Beelzebub.

"Hey, easy there!" Crowley called. Bentley was satisfied and pushed Crowley towards Alexandria who wrapped her wing around Crowey's shoulders and looked for all intents and purposes very smug and protective as Crowley tried to clean his face with his sleeves.

"It's certain death. I have no doubt Crowley can tame Dao. But Gabriel won't take it easy either way. He's a wanker." They held Eve closer. "I'd love to kill him, if I may."

"If we get the court on our side, and we have Dao... well. We will also have right, as well as might, rather than it looking like a... simply basic fight for power." The knight shrugged. "Bea, I love you as well, but let me say if you have a better plan, I am all ears. Or... anyone? Any plan?"

"Originally we wanted to conquer the capital... Make you the king." Beelzebub informed casually. "Crowley talked us out of it. Said that you'd make a good but unhappy monarch..."

The nose wrinkle of disgust said the exact same thing. "Oh, goodness, no. I mean, I'd try my best, but I'd be absolutely horrid and hate it..."

"Anyway... I suggest..." Crowley came closer. Alexandria was watching him intently. "I suggest we do as Aziraphale says. If in three days you don't hear from us, then fly to the capital and... Scare them. A bit." He looked at Aziraphale.

"If we... Aren't... Around... I suggest you do what you need to, in order to survive. Things are unlikely to be pleasant." The knight hated thinking it, hated saying it even more. 

"I remember." Eve's tone was bitter. "Don't worry about us. If he'd left people in peace, he'd have had peace."

"We're quite safe where we are, and only Crowley knows the place. He won't betray us." Beelzebub smirked somewhat threateningly.

"I won't," Crowley replied calmly. "Pepper can tame dragons and in time will be able to train an apprentice of her own. Was fun, right?" He smiled.

"No!" 

Alexandria's wings spread in alarm at her rider's outburst.

"What?" Eve asked, moving to comfort the dragon before she remembered it wasn't 'hers' and it was looking for the knight's reassurance. 

"It can't be that safe! If it was - Crowley wouldn't have agreed to come with me. He'd have - have - just buggered off with you all!"

"He never intended to." Beelzebub informed dryly. "He was always ready to serve as a distraction for us to escape or hide or whatever. Bloody idiot." They kissed Crowley on the cheek. Bentley roared jealously.

"Yeah..." Crowley scratched his head. "Kinda..."

"Crowley! You idiot!" Aziraphale punched his shoulder, face red. "I'm beginning to think you actually do have a death wish!"

"No, I don't. But I told you, I have a reason to live or to die... Even more so now. You think I wouldn't die for you?"

"I would rather you  _ lived _ ." He glowered down his nose. As he was shorter, it was somewhat less effective.

"I would rather I lived as well. The odds are the odds are the odds are the odds..."

Aziraphale turned to Beelzebub and Eve. "Can one of you knock some sense into him, I don't want to be accused of spousal abuse before I even am one!"

"I knocked him plenty." Beelzebub shrugged. "But Bentley then tried to toss me off a cliff and I still need to get back, so... He's your problem now! Congratulations!"

"You can knock me, angel. Tenderly." Crowley smirked.

Aziraphale stomped on his foot. "Don't say things like that in public!"

"Why? Beelzebub and Eve are not embarrassed by a notion of physical intimacy. I walked in on them several times."

"He did." Beelzebub agreed.

"Well I don't want people walking in on us! It's... private." He was clearly getting more flustered by the minute. "And if that put sense into you, I'd do it more often."

"Do what?" Crowley asked, smirking again.

"It's been lovely seeing you," Aziraphale said to Eve and Beelzebub, entirely ignoring Crowley.

"You two are perfect together," Eve laughed. "Don't worry."

"We are," Crowley swooned. "Let's get on with it, angel. They want to snog - in privacy!"

"Come here." Eve wrapped her arms around them, one after the other. "Oh, I love you. You take care of him," she told Crowley. "He's as reckless as you at times."

"Am not," the knight mumbled.

"Of course. Everything for him!" He smiled proudly. "Come, angel. We need to fuck your brother. Metaphorically."

Aziraphale choked. And not in a pleasant way.

  
  


* * *

It had been so, so long. Aziraphale was torn between just hugging Alexandria's neck, and leaning back into Crowley, and - and - he had them both! And he was taking them both into danger! But it could work out so wonderfully... He could feel the nerves in his dragon, too, and...

"...does... does this make you jealous?" he asked, quietly.

"What? You riding someone else?" He kissed Aziraphale's temple.

"Me... being bonded to her," he replied, touching a thigh around his own. "Though you may soon be my king anyway..."

"I don't want to be a king, angel... It sounds very hot, you know, me being your king… I'm happy you're back with her. I am. I love you." He kissed Aziraphale again.

Alexandria trilled again, she was a very vocal dragon, and she was clearly pleased with the two humans she was carrying. 

The knight puffed up at the shoulders, pleasantly ruffled, and relaxed between the two loves of his life. "I'm pretty sure she loves you almost as much as I do. Look at her scales..."

The lustre was returning, the rainbow sheen starting to break through. 

"Are you sure you want to go straight to Gabriel?"

"What would you suggest instead, angel? Going to your rooms and making love till next harvest? Mind you, it's autumn, so it's a year of lovemaking." Crowley held Aziraphale closer and tighter.

"...whilst that does sound enticing..." He squirmed. "Mm... how about victory lovemaking, instead? If you keep talking about it, I'm going to need a lay-over." In more ways than one.

"How about just running away into the woods, angel? Cabin, babies, bears... Isn't it enticing too?" Crowley sounded almost hopeless.

"It does... but... no worrying about the babies." Aziraphale turned, and pecked the tip of his nose. "Think of how many happy babies. Not just ours."

Crowley breathed down Aziraphale's neck, something solely reserved for their night rest. "Ours..." He whispered. "We are... We are real, right, angel? We're together, you love me..."

Riding a dragon whilst aroused was an interesting new sensation, and Aziraphale whimpered, embarrassed, because he was sure she could tell. He gripped Crowley's knee. " _ Yes _ ," the knight hissed. "Oh, yes. I love you. And I'm going to marry the hell out of you."

"Promising," Crowley replied. "Tell me more. I'm scared shitless, just so you know." 

But his arms around Aziraphale were safe and warm and comforting, and he wasn't trembling with fear, the only shiver in his body being that of love, of the passionate desire to care for, to protect.

"About our wedding? I'm going to invite everyone you know and love, and anyone who is worth inviting, and I'll tell everyone that you're mine, and only mine. And I'll kiss you, and then... take you to our bed..." Damnit. No. Aziraphale needed to not go too far. "Crowley... if you keep squeezing me, I'm turning her to the ground..."

"Tempting... Turn her to the ground, angel. Want to love you one last time before we risk everything."

"But - but she'll know!" Aziraphale chewed his lip, then - well, the dragon moved down without urging, putting a wing out to help them down. 

**_[Sex begins here. Proceed with caution.]_ **

"You are very bad," he told his Ryu. "Please... stay in the trees and keep watch out for us?"

Crowley dragged Aziraphale down from the dragon and had him pinned to the nearest tree in no time. "Who knows whether I'll be alive tomorrow..." Kisses down Aziraphale's neck. "But I want to die knowing I had this..." Hands up Aziraphale's tunic. "I had you, my beautiful knight." Crowley on his knees. "You'll carry me with you, just a tiny speck of me, but you will."

"Crowley... if you die, I die with you. There is no me, without you." Aziraphale pushed his hands into Crowley's hair, pulling him to his belly, demanding kisses. "Make love to me. Make love to me like it's our wedding night. I need you, I need to feel you on my skin for hours, so you protect me and I protect you..."

Crowley took Aziraphale into his mouth and hummed approvingly. Seeing as he was entirely robbed of any ability to speak Aziraphale, per usual, had to do it for both of them.

"CROWLEY!" His head hit the tree, and he whimpered, trying to keep quiet and struggling. He tugged at Crowley's hair, and pushed his own hips forwards. "Oh, don't let me - don't let me finish like this... love, I - I - CROWLEY!" He pulled him back, and pushed his thumb into Crowley's mouth, trying to get his breathing under control. "Clothes. Off."

"What, here? Under a tree? But I'll scratch my back!" Crowley laughed. He took his clothes off and obediently lay down.

Aziraphale took his cloak off, and then gently laid it down. "Here... I can't have you hurting." He knelt, taking the rest of his clothes off, and settling beside him to rest a hand on his hip and nuzzle their noses together. "It's not our wedding bed, but between my cloak and the leaves above... somewhere between our worlds?"

"Oh, bugger all," Crowley said and straddled Aziraphale. "So soft, angel, so beautiful..." He leaned down to kiss Aziraphale soundly on the lips. "This time, you take us both in your hand. I want it to be you..." He kissed Aziraphale's cheek, neck, collarbone, chest... And stopped breathless, feeling Aziraphale's hand on him.

"Don't stop touching me," Aziraphale begged, with one hand gripping Crowley's hip, the other carefully lining them up, his fingers dancing delicately over them both. "Look at me. Look at me, I need to see how you love me, too. I n-need you to see how much I love you." He rubbed his thumb over one tip, then the other, mixing the start of their release together. "Tell me you'll never stop loving me."

"Of course I won't... You daft angel... My heart." Crowley kissed him again, and again, and again, just to make the point clear. "What... Whom else do I have, if not you, you utter idiot... Aziraphale, I mean it, if we have to... Risk our lives, then let me take this risk... I want you alive and enjoying it for both of us, alright? Promise me! Promise me, you utter bastard!"

"No!" Aziraphale's gripped the base of his lover's cock, chokingly tight, his eyes on fire. Somewhere above, Alexandria roared in response to the flash of fear and anger. "No. No! Don't! When I lost her, I lost - I lost too much! You can't ask me, no... I won't be happy if you aren't with me. I'm not doing that!" Feverishly, he moved to only hold Crowley's cock, jerking him with all the speed he could muster, his motions rough and his grip tight. "Don't. LEAVE ME."

"I'll never leave you, angel... Not of my own volition..." Crowley's head fell on Aziraphale's shoulder. "Never... I'll keep you and hold you... As long as... No, angel, not like that, I want your pleasure..." But his limbs didn't obey.

"But - but - I need you," Aziraphale begged, curling tighter around Crowey's neck, his fist twisting, wanting to nearly hurt, or feel so good it hurt. "Crowley..." He pushed their foreheads together, and then grabbed his waist. "I - I want you..."

"Anything you want, angel... Anything..." Crowley almost whispered.

"H-how? On your back? On your knees?" He bit at his lover's lip, tugging with his teeth. "Need to be inside you. You inside me. All of it. All of it. Please... I need you all mine, I need - I need you..."

"Anything, angel." Crowley rolled over, spreading his legs. "Just... You'll need more spit." He smiled, yet seemed helpless, at Aziraphale's mercy, lost and vulnerable.

Aziraphale moved behind, kissing his upper thighs, rolling hands over his cheeks, then pushing his nose up one leg. "Can I put my tongue inside you?"

"You can do anything... I washed myself just this morning..." Crowley tried to be coy and failed miserably, whimpering into Aziraphale's cloak.

"Tell me if it hurts," he asked, as he kissed and nuzzled, moving to kiss his balls, then lift them to suckle for a moment, before his tongue was brave enough to dip the tip out, and circle his hole. It didn't taste bad, so he lapped rough swipes and then tight circles. His palms kneaded, spreading Crowley wider, before he thrust his tongue past the resistance, holding him still.

Crowley grabbed at Aziraphale's cloak and wailed through his teeth. "Fuck, angel... You can't do this to me... Now... Now that we might be... Dead... Tonight..." He forgot everything and just wailed some more.

The knight wasn't about to give up, not now. Aziraphale started to use his tongue like he wanted to use his cock, and moved to tug and squeeze at his balls as he did. He could feel the shaking, and the rocking, and he lifted to playfully bite at his thigh. "If we are, if we are... at least one time, you'll have been entirely mine. Nothing will take this from us, nothing will keep us apart." He pushed his mouth back into place, and reamed his tongue as wide and then firm as he could.

"I... I begin to think..." Crowley laughed, that same, twice damned expression of his face, that of pure trust, of absolute openness. "I begin to think I was only born... To... To be yours, angel..." He breathed out loudly, giving up the last of his control. "And if not... Who cares... Just a jester... Lusting after a king's son... Aziraphale... Aziraphale... Aziraphale..." He smiled into the cloak, soft and trusting, completely at Aziraphale's mercy and happy about it. "Yes... Yes, my beautiful angel... Yes... Like that, like that, more..."

"No, not 'just' a jester..." Aziraphale was pushing one finger at the rim, now, teasing and easing past the clench of muscle, the sounds and sight of his lover's enjoyment spurring him on. "A beautiful, clever man, smarter than a king, braver than a knight, more loving than any father..." The finger went in, and Aziraphale moaned at the way he could imagine that around his cock. "Oh, I don't care. You're already my husband. Ceremony be damned, I'll claim you now for the world to know. I'll give you your cabin, I'll give you a hundred!"

"Just one is enough, angel..." Crowley keened, grabbing handfuls of Aziraphale's cloak, lost to pleasure. "Come on... Claim me once more... Just one more time before everyone else is tossed into existence... Yes, Aziraphale, my Aziraphale, my love..." He moaned, he didn't even dare to move more.

"I don't want to hurt you," Aziraphale murmured, and pushed a second finger in, trying to stretch him, making sure he wouldn't be injured. He crooked them both, and bent his knuckles. "I'm going to ride you harder than any dragon. I'm going to give you everything."

"Makes me a bigger dragon than Dao themselves..." Crowley chuckled and then wailed, hopelessly. "Angel... Two days ago... In the pinewood... It was so... Sunny... Do it like that but better... Fuck, Aziraphale, my angel... Should have stolen you, should have taken you, love you..." Now he was howling, lost and found, happy and loveless

Aziraphale fell back onto his knees, spitting into his hand again, rubbing between his legs. "Don't let this hurt," he begged, spitting again and lightly coating his shaft. He didn't dare wait, taking hold of his waist and pushing up against him, leaning in and waiting for him to lean back. "Let me in, Crowley. Let me in."

"Sure angel... Anything you want..." Crowley said dreamily. Was he a creature of a physical form? Or was he just a mischievous forest spirit pushed into a lanky skinny body but equally untameable and friendly and funny? Was he someone sent to tempt Aziraphale? Was he someone to bless Aziraphale? Did it matter when it felt so good, when it felt so right?

Slowly, slowly, he pushed deeper inside. Crowley's body opened around him, greeting him, pulling him closer. His warm thighs behind Crowley's, his belly coming to rest over Crowley's spine, one hand grabbing the cloak for purchase. When he could push no further, he kissed at his nape, rocking them and loving the feeling of closeness. "I love you, I'll always love you, oh, Crowley... don't let this end."

Crowley didn't answer, just rocked to match Aziraphale's movements, smiling, teasing, biting his lips, the forest king, the elven spirit, someone out of this world but entirely oblivious to it. Aziraphale was all that mattered, Aziraphale was the forest, the water, the fire, everything. As far as Crowley was concerned, he shouldn't have existed before Aziraphale laid his eyes on him. 

"Fuck... Angel... Harder, do it harder, make me remember it."

Aziraphale nodded, and started to rut, started to try to move fiercer, the rough glide almost as good as the sounds he could feel vibrating through his chest. He reached for Crowley's cock, and made a fist that he started to rut him through. "Want you to feel me inside you all day... want you to know you're part of me, that - that - oh... Crowley... I'm..." He dug his feet in, going with all the strength in him, chasing the electric feel that was so loud he could barely remember his name. "FUCK. Fuck! CROWLEY!"

Crowley shouldn't have had claws but what reached over to Aziraphale's thigh wasn't a human hand. "Yesssss," Crowley hissed. "Make me yoursssss... I am all yourssssssssss... That's just all I am..." He rose, somehow, his other hand on Aziraphale's neck, and his lips at Aziraphale's ear. "Yessssss... Like that, like that, you serpent's lover..."

"All I am is yours," Aziraphale echoed. Because he was. He was, in all the ways that mattered, and the sting of the tugging, the twist, the way they met... he dragged Crowley back by the cock, hand pulling him up and impaling him thoroughly, pushing past that final - final grip that had him howl as he released inside of him. His hands kept holding, his legs shaking, as it wracked him.

Crowley whimpered and then laughed, loudly and joyously, the forest still echoing the beautiful sound as he climaxed with a groan.

**_[Sex ends here.]_ **

***

Gabriel was having a lovely garden party, only the noblest of the noble with minor nobles doing the servants' work. The king was pleased. As far as he was concerned, his fussy little annoying shame of a brother was either lost or dead somewhere by the road. The whole idea of sending Aziraphale away had always appealed to Gabriel, but when he finally decided to do it... Oh, such lightness! A burden lost! A few courtiers who liked Aziraphale and went as far as to consider the younger prince the more reasonable of the two, were now scared and silent. 

Gabriel breathed in and looked at the sky - his mood was destroyed.

Through the bright morning blueness flew an irridiscent Ryu, Aziraphale's Alexandria bearing her thrice damned rider and someone else...

The courtiers gasped, someone dropped their cup, someone stepped on a flower bed...

Alexandria landed gracefully, her wings flourishing and her gleam restored. She trumpeted out a greeting, which the dragons in the vicinity echoed. 

Aziraphale dismounted first, offering his hand to Crowley to help him down. 

"Oh, hello Gabriel, me old mucker... Jolly nice of you to put this party on to welcome us home!"

Gabriel gaped. The man next to his brother seemed vaguely familiar. 

"Hello," Crowley grinned in false greeting. "I believe you needed my help with your dragon. Let's get it over with, I have a wedding to plan." He looked at Aziraphale. 

"You... you..." Was all Gabriel was capable of uttering. There were more gasps and whispers. "Where... How? Alexandria... And... Crawly?"

"Crowley," the knight corrected, at once. "Before I answer anything else, just to confirm: this is to prove that who controls the king's dragon has right of succession, yes?"

"Ehm..." Gabriel remembered he was the king and his considerable lack of wits was of nobody's business. "I have the right of succession, and no stupid old lizard would decide it."

"If Dao is a stupid old lizard, then you are a very dead king already." Crowley smirked and stepped in front of Aziraphale protectively.

"Wait, weren't you asking for this to prove your point? If not, did I go find Crowley for no reason?" He squeezed Crowley's hand. "If so, I must thank you for encouraging me to meet him. I trust you'll be at our wedding?"

The court did much gasping, cooing and humming that day. 

Gabriel laughed. "So you buggered on the road and think you can marry a fucking jester? Although I think it's fitting for you, to imagine yourself in love with a clown."

"I actually tame feral dragons... Isn't it more impressive than that time I mocked your inability to fight with two swords to your dear daddy? I believe I compared you to a drunk octopus or something... Your father laughed his arse off." Crowley offered another false smile.

Among the courtiers someone tried to choke on their laughter.

"The only one who looks a fool is you, dear brother. And I think I can marry whomever I want, just as Eve did," Aziraphale snapped back. "She's been looking after my dragon since she left to avoid your bedchambers. She sends her regards, by the way."

He held his hand out to Crowley. "Would you care to show them all how you can tame the dragon Gabriel is so afraid of, that he sent me to fetch you?"

Gabriel was so angry he could hardly breathe, and his face turned scarlet. 

"Go! You and your fucking commoner. Dao will eat you in the blink of an eye, and I will finally be free of you and of that bloody jester!"

"Oi, you're as rude as you used to be." Crowley shook his head in disapproval. He took Aziraphale's hand and moved to go. 

"Eve was promised to me, and you are only good for scum!" Roared Gabriel.

"Hey, you're not good enough for him," Crowley snapped back. "Makes you scum of the scum... As you've always been."

"Even my dragon had more compassion for your intended wife than you did. If people are willing to flee rather than be forced to be with you, what does that say?"

Alexandria dipped her neck to let them mount, then turned quickly, nearly bitch slapping Gabriel with her tail and kicking up dirt as he took off.

Trying to keep his dignity Gabriel didn't notice that none of the courtiers rushed to his help. He trained them well, he thought... And then realised that none of his presumably loyal servants wanted to help him. He didn't want their help, of course but...

An old count, of the minor houses, forced to serve drinks despite his old age, casually dropped the tray and walked out.

"Alexandria, do you think you could call to Dao for us? See where he is?"

She wiggled enthusiastically, flying up high to the ramparts and calling loudly. A few others joined in, and then a bellowing answer indicated he had heard. 

"Would you care to tell her where you'd like to do this?" Aziraphale asked Crowley.

"Ideally, back there, right in front of your brother and his cronies." Crowley smirked. "He is a terrible brother. You deserve a much better sibling. I'll ask Adam to adopt you."

"If Adam is your child, then he can't be my brother, or we can't get married," Aziraphale snorted. "Eve, maybe?"

Dao appeared, the Hesperian dragon, green as fresh apples and by far the largest of all. A long, serpentine body atop four limbs, frilled, sky-darkening wings, and a crested head that made the king's customary crown look like a paper hat. 

Dao followed them down to the party, roaring angrily.

"Oh my, so many heads..." Crowley whispered in awe. 

Dao flew by and landed on the flat roof of the library. Crowley practically jumped down to follow them.

Heads? Aziraphale kept his dragon hovering close by, ready to try to rescue Crowley if things went... pear shaped.

Crowley stood up and dusted himself. Dao looked at him with pitiless curiosity. They roared and stuck their heads out, closer to Crowley.

"You're a beauty, you are. May I come nearer?" He extended his hand, palm facing upwards. "I know they treated you badly, I know, and it must have taken you a while to break free, right? I mean no harm, Dao." He extended the other hand too and then opened them wide, that damned, blessed vulnerability of his like an undying flame, both an armour and an open wound. "I don't want to use you... You want to know what I need?" He took a step forward seeing as Dao didn't make another move.

Aziraphale watched, entranced, but nervous. Alexandria caught the worry and started to judder. 

Yes, Dao seemed to be fine, but at any moment it could turn.

"I want..." Crowley stepped closer still. "That one, on the dragon, see him?" 

Dao turned two of their heads to take a look at Alexandria and Aziraphale, then turned all the heads back to Crowley.

"I love him. Want to live with him in a big forest. Isn't that nice? Living somewhere quiet with a creature you love?" Crowley took another step. Dao's ten heads snarled but the rest shushed them. 

"Just... Let me... Let me show them you're great. I'll take you out of here, far from here and set you free. You need to be free, Dao... They keep telling that whoever rides you is the king, but that's the whole problem, isn't it? The one who claims to defeat freedom, takes everyone's freedom too... How about we prove them all wrong, Dao? How about I take you away from here, me and Aziraphale... Let us buy freedom for you and you'll buy us freedom as well?" Crowley was close enough to pet one of the heads.

"I want to touch you, alright? Won't hurt you, never." He caressed the green scales. The head purred. A few looked surprised and moved closer to Crowley's hand. "You feel like Aziraphale... Strong, beautiful, noble of heart... Oh Dao, you're a miracle."

It pierced him then, that urgent, throbbing feeling of being responsible for the brilliant creature in front of him. A few more heads nuzzled his hands, and a few more licked him, sniffing curiously.

"Dao... You're free."

It didn't look bad, but Aziraphale had never seen the process before. He could see the approach of Gabriel and some others, and pulled his dragon to stand between them. 

"Crowley... is - is everything alright?"

"I... Want him all... To mysssssssselfffff..." Crowey's smile wasn't entirely human, nor was his voice. Dao didn't mind though. Their many heads moved towards him, while still many remained looking at Aziraphale and Alexandria. 

Gabriel yelled something, but no one cared to listen. Crowley was embraced by hundreds and hundreds of heads, whispering, hissing, licking, arguing, and yet hundreds seemed to be yearning for Aziraphale and called for him.

"Angel!" Crowley emerged from the sea of small dragons around him. "They... They want you too, angel."

"Crowley? You - you don't seem..." 

Alexandria whined, but dropped to the ground, and let Aziraphale down, but kept her head to the floor as she stayed close and ready to charge in. Dao clearly intimidated her, and her colour faded drastically. 

He could see the heads too now, and he gasped, unsure if he should approach. Dao wasn't attacking, but they were clearly not calm. The rattling noise got louder, and Aziraphale stepped with tiny, tiny steps closer. He reached a hand out for Crowley's, his blue eyes wide. He didn't want to go anywhere near the big dragon, but - but Crowley...

"Love? Love - you - you look... you don't look right... darling...?"

"They are alright, Aziraphale. They are happy. Can't you feel it?" Crowley kissed him soundly on the lips, and the heads around him trilled approvingly. "They... Need you, Aziraphale, just like I do... Feel it, angel... Feel it." Crowley took Aziraphale's hand and put it on one of the heads around them. The hiss and trill grew louder, and then more heads, countless heads stormed Aziraphale -- to lick him and coo over him. There were whispers, long, longing whispers, hopeless pleas, hopeful confessions.

"He's - he's hurt!" Aziraphale clutched Crowley's hand with one of his, the other sliding down a neck, trying to eke out the pain. "Oh, darling... there's so many voices, how do you not go mad? Crowley... can you *hear* him?"

It was like a hundred of wails and moans running around in his head, and he turned his head to the other. "Wait - I can hear him?"

"You can, angel," Crowley whispered, and the heads around him echoed his voice. "They are hurt. And lonely... So lonely, despite all the voices. Just... Stay." 

Dao's wings came around them and Dao's tail circled their feet.

"Crowley, if you can hear him..." Aziraphale reached up to touch Crowley's face, feeling the odd echo of his sensation, his feelings, with Crowley's and Dao's. He felt the longing, the loneliness, the... 

"We have to help him. He - I - we - we can't be!" He tried to step back, suddenly afraid, and then pushed back in by the dragon's tail. "He's bonding to you. But - but I can't! It's - it's not right!"

"No, angel, don't go... Stay. Stay with me. Stay with us." Crowley embraced Aziraphale. "I have no idea what you're talking about, but stay, if only for me... Stay..." 

Dao purred, all their heads at once.

"Stay with us, angel. It's just like loving me... You told me it's alright, you did, and it's alright... You love so generously, angel. Spare some for Dao, too..." He held Aziraphale closer and kissed his lips. "Stay!"

"I'll go mad - how can I love you, Dao, and Alexandria! Oh, it's so much, so loud... he loves you already. Can't you feel it? Crowley..." He threw himself into the other's arms, and pulled him as tightly as he could against himself. "You've bonded with him. You did it! Oh, it's so loud!"

"Shhhh, angel, it's alright, it's alright. Your heart is big enough for all of us. I'll keep you safe, angel, I always will, I love you, love you, love you... We're properly wed now," Crowley said. He was calm, collected, proud. "We're one, angel, just as we wanted... It is scary a bit, and tingly, I'll give you that, but it's right, it's true... I love you, and you love me. That's all you ever need to know." 

Dao hummed and trilled and wrapped their wings around both men and brought their heads all over them. Eventually they calmed down, yet their wings remained around Aziraphale and Crowley, protecting them from the powerless anger of Gabriel and his lot.

It was so strange, but suddenly it was as if it always had been this way. A sudden calm, that spread through him. Once he stopped fighting, it was as if he could see from every direction at once. 

So Aziraphale turned to Crowley, just as Crowley turned to him. "Gabriel!"

Crowley turned around, some messy movement to both protect Aziraphale and avoid Gabriel's dagger. 

One of Dao's heads bit at Gabriel's hand, and another went for the king's neck, and yet another hissed in disgust and bit at his hip tearing up the veins and spitting out in disgust.

Aziraphale had his sword up and out, but before he could do anything, Dao was lunging for his brother. He turned to hide his face in his sleeve, trying to ignore the screams and crunches as Dao devoured Gabriel whole. 

When it was over, Dao lifted up on his wings, flaming a tunnel into the sky.

"Fuck, angel, I'm so sorry," Crowley said apologetically.

"He had it coming," Aziraphale mumbled, putting his sword away. "Let's... let's... we should talk to the court."

"I think first we have to take care of Dao... Hey, handsome! Could we... Eh... Make an entrance with your help? You can fly away now, you know. Up to you."

Dao's many heads hissed, some indignantly, some tenderly. 

"Alright, alright... You're just like Aziraphale, so fussy." Crowley kissed Aziraphale, then one of Dao's heads. "Shall we, angel?" He pointed towards Dao's welcoming wing.

"I don't think Dao would ever want to fly away, Crowley. You saw how miserable Alexandria and I were, when we were apart. Dao hasn't bonded properly with anyone in... forever..." 

He clucked at the nose that pushed at them, guiding them up. "I heard you!" he told Dao, as they both climbed up onto his back.

It felt wondrous, almost as good as Aziraphale making love to him, but different and maybe even better -- bonding with Dao together, riding Dao together. 

The dragon was just as delirious as Crowley and just as fussy as Aziraphale. 

"So... What shall we tell them?" Crowley asked, turning towards Aziraphale behind him.

"We tell them what you told Dao." He squeezed him tighter, and laughed as they suddenly had an honour guard of Alexandria, and then several other dragons. "Tell them they're free. Tell them they can choose. You can hear Dao's voices... you know that we need to work together."

Dao's wings beat, as he threw them into a tight roll of celebration. 

"We need... we need everyone's interests. Humans, and dragons."


	7. Ouroboros

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the end for which we twain are met

Crowley wasn't one of those people who enjoyed staying in one place for a long time and talk. He got restless and then angry and then just plainly anxious and stormed out of the room under the pretext that he needed to send a word to Beelzebub.

Aziraphale was most polite as he made his more lengthy excuses on departure, following Crowley out and guiding him to an open window overlooking the gardens. "My dear?"

"Sending a word to Beelzebub... And Eve. She can be the queen now, I guess... Aziraphale, I can't stand it here. I had to tame Dao, and instead bonded to the poor bugger... It's too much for me here. I want to go home." Crowley kept scribbling on some random piece of paper he snatched on his way out.

A warm hand came up to his nape, and thumbed behind his ear. Slow, reassuring circles. "My darling, may I make a suggestion? After you summon them... why don't we form... form some kind of council. Some group, so there is not the onus on one or two people. Then you needn't feel it's all on you, but you still have input. And we can make some way of having our freedom, but helping, too. We don't need to live here. But we can still help."

Crowley jerked away wincing. "I'm not a leader, Aziraphale. I'm... I don't know what to do, but I don't want to... I want to take Dao away. I promised them. If I am the last rightful king, then I'm abdicating and taking my dragon away."

Outside, Dao rumbled, not entirely happy. 

"He's not just yours," Aziraphale reminded him, very quietly. "You asked me to join you. And you don't need to be the leader, but you can *join in*. You don't need to be the king - but haven't we had enough of those?"

"What exactly can I do? Or should do?" Crowley shrugged. "It wasn't my decision for you to join, by the way, Dao decided it themselves." He added and smiled. "You told me you want a life with me. Told me we'd have one. Does it... Did you mean it? Do you mean it now?"

Aziraphale held his hands out, eyes full of compassion. "I want nothing more. Look inside if you aren't convinced. I want a life with you. I want to spend the rest of mine with you. I want to see you happy, every single day." 

Aziraphale bent up, and kissed his forehead. "We ask for help. We get others involved. And we work together. As equals. And then, each night, we go home to our cabin, and spend the night in each other's arms."

"So, just in the dark, huh? You being a proper prince by day and then bashfully retiring to husband? I shouldn't be surprised... So... This is what it is for me, isn't it? I didn't want any of it..." Crowley shut his eyes. "I can't help anyone, Aziraphale. I need to send the letter and... Well, nothing I can do. Nowhere I can go." He began to walk away slowly.

Aziraphale wasn't happy with that, and he grabbed Crowley's hand, then twisted and pushed him, back-first, into the wall. And kissed him. And then kissed him again, and a third time for good measure. "No. Dao chose you. Stop this. First you say you'll die. Then you say you'll be miserable away from the woods. Stop this!"

Aziraphale held Crowley's shoulders, blue eyes fierce. "If I took you to a cabin and did nothing but fuck you all day and night, one: my dick would fall off, and then yours. Two: you would be miserably fed up of me. This is your *chance*. This is your chance to *actually* be free. But you're making it into a yoke someone's put over your shoulders. Do you care about those children? Any of them? Would you let another Gabriel come forwards?"

"What would you have me do?! What do you want me to do?

"And mind you, I don't want to spend all our time fucking. I want to live with you. Some fucking would be nice, to be sure, but... Tell me what to do?"

"Crowley, you are as capable as me of making decisions. You need to man up." Aziraphale pulled Crowley to his full height, and then let go. "Don't ask me what you need to do. You *know* what you need to do. So *do* it."

Crowley sighed and walked away to send the letter. He checked on Alexandria and Dao. He was scared to death when a servant whyever asked him what he'd like for dinner. In the end he returned to the dragons and sat with them.

***

Aziraphale knew courtly procedures, better than he'd like. And protocol. And precedent. And all the other things. He hated them - always had - but he knew what they were, and that the palace wouldn't function without them. 

So he spent the day micromanaging. Guiding. Being what all the mingling voices needed. Direction. Confidence. Even if it killed him inside, because he had less than no desire to do it, but if it didn't get done, then - well - chaos. 

When he finally finished, he was exhausted. Miserable. And his eyes burned. He walked out to get fresh air, and pulled at the thread of Alexandria's mind until he could track them down. When he found them, he was... well. Hurt. 

"If you think I enjoy all that, I don't. You were very happy to tell me how awful my family is, but you still ran off to let me try to fix it on my own."

Crowley pulled Aziraphale into an embrace. 

"Listen, angel, the only help I could have given you was holding your hand or mocking the people who had just seen their world... Utterly... Smashed. 

"I'd have you know though that after getting scared shitless of a servant boy, I gathered my wits, and it took me two whole hours, but I asked him to make a bath for you. The big one. He smiled at me, can you imagine? Anyway, he said he knew what you like and that he would bring it to the bath. 

"I sent the letter to Beelzebub. I'm sure they will be here in a few days...

"I... Can use Dao to scare someone into obedience, but... That won't be any different, will it? But I thought... Nevermind. Let's get you to that bath."

The knight held on, burrowing in, not looking like he wanted to move any time soon. "I didn't want to run things. But you left me no choice. I - I have never wanted power, but I can hardly shirk from duty when it is there..." What had he done? He shuddered, from his ears down to his toes. 

"I don't know that I'm doing anything right. I wanted to stay in my library. And then there was you, and - and - I wanted you to be happy, and you hated my family, and I thought - I thought if I could fix it, make it better for everyone... but I don't know how, and I can't do it on my own..."

Crowley nodded, very understanding indeed. Then he was suddenly back to his usual frantic activity and dragged Aziraphale to the baths (Aziraphale had to tell him where to go most of the way, but it was rather sweet), there Crowley had his "angel knight" bathed, fed, shaved, massaged and tenderly buggered. 

"Now we sleep." Crowley said afterwards. Somehow Aziraphale managed to get them both to his bedroom. In the morning Crowley was gone, and a few servants standing by door with Aziraphale's favourite food and books and clothes, still looked into the middle distance, apparently in disbelief that a human could move so fast.

* * *

Aziraphale frowned at the servants. He'd woken up feeling physically better, if somewhat... frustrated, still. And when there was no Crowley in sight, he'd wrapped a towel around his waist. "What are you doing here?" he asked them. 

"Uhm, Sir, the - the other Sir - he - uh--"

"Where is he?"

"Well... He... He..." The old valet who had been taking care of Aziraphale since his adolescence, pointed somewhere down the hall.

To answer that question, Crowley woke up, got dressed and went amok.

It was his turn to scare the servants, but nothing would ruin his focus. He remembered, somewhat, the people he used to know and like at court, and they, probably because he frightened them too waking them up in all his new glory of an almost king, agreed to do his bidding. A few courtiers were loaded on grumpy Dao and delivered down to the slums. 

There Crowley demanded reconstruction, regular food supply, medical help and education for every person around, preferably the day before, but seeing as it was most definitely impossible, as someone managed to convince him, he settled for immediately. 

Before long it was night and no one dared to argue with Crowley who was nowhere to be seen -- he had organized everything, so now he had to get his hands very dirty. His energy proved to be the only problem the summoned medics could do nothing about, but this disease was of a good, creative nature. 

And before long it was the evening of Crowey's second day in the slums.

***

By the time Aziraphale had tracked Crowley down, he was harried, frantic, and terrified. He looked pale, with red-rimmed eyes, and the minute he saw Crowley he squawked his name accusingly, and ran towards him.

Crowley was minding his own kingdom's business and distracted the children during medical exams with silly faces and stories about Hastur and Ligur. Judging by the looks on the faces of the children and medics, Crowley was ridiculously adored. 

Hearing his name yelled, Crowley turned around and saw the furious pale knight a few steps away and the next moment he was pinned to a nearest wall, rather feeble one, and yelled at with passion he'd rather see in different circumstances.

"You ran off! You ran off! You said you wouldn't leave me, and I wake up to a bunch of BOOKS? Crowley? What were you thinking? You left me!" Aziraphale had clearly been crying rather a lot, as he twisted his fists into his shirt.

"I... M... Ha... How... I mean... I left you a few hours ago, it's alright... Wanted to surprise you... Do things..." Crowley searched Aziraphale's face and failing to see anything other than that he had upset someone he loved like the fool he was (huh), began to shake in Aziraphale's arms.

Aziraphale pulled him in, trembling just as badly, terrified by how upset he was feeling. "You've been gone for days! I've been scouring the kingdom for you! Crowley - I was half convinced you were dead in a ditch somewhere!"

"D... Days?.. I... I'm sorry, Aziraphale, I'm so... So sorry." His lips made a very strange and rather ugly line. "I... Never leave you, never! Wanted to do something, as... As you wanted me to and... Have lost the... Track of time..." He was crying in earnest and his belly chose that very moment to make a complaint of its own.

Fussy arms bundled Crowley up, and Aziraphale rolled him into a hug of epic proportions. "Don't run out on me, you silly dragonling! I told you, I want to be with you. I was frantic! And terrified! And didn't you hear me tell you I can't live without you!"

He rubbed at his hair, his back, kissing him messily, sobbing just as hard. Not far away, Dao howled to the skies. 

"You - you foolish fellow... you... you did a grand job, just... don't do it without me, please? I cannot bear it!"

Crowley obediently nodded into Aziraphale's shoulder, holding the knight with his long and lanky arms. Someone whistled and someone laughed, and Dao growled, quietly but with purpose. 

"I won't, ever, I promise. No surprises, none whatsoever, ever. Won't ever run away again... I wasn't running away from you, angel, I wasn't, I love you..." 

Dao covered them modestly with their wing.

Aziraphale snuffled. "I'm sorry. I just. I told you... after losing her, the thought of losing you... I couldn't handle it. I - I just - you mean so much to me. You silly, silly boy. Have you even eaten? Slept? Am I going to need to tie you to a bed?"

Crowley's stomach made another plea for sustenance. "I don't think I have... Eaten or slept. To be honest. I... Take me... Somewhere, alright?" He looked up at Aziraphale. "Take me somewhere we can be... Just us."

Aziraphale tapped at Dao's shoulder, and with the dragon's assistance, they got Crowley up and the knight settled right behind him. "Come on. I'm going to feed you all the damn mushrooms you ever wanted." His knees squeezed him worriedly, as he blanketed his back to keep him warm. "You terrible thing. Whatever will I do with you?"

Crowley sobbed and laughed simultaneously. The noises that came out of him... 

"Marry me?" He asked meekly. "The whole terrible shit that I am? I helped you bond with the second dragon after all. Never has been done." He bleakly waved at the kids who forgot about him quite quickly since the food had been most timely brought.

"I am not marrying you until you have eaten, and slept. And if you consent to do both of those things, then I will marry you in the morning." He kissed at his neck again. "Do we have a deal? Or do you want to wait for your friends to arrive?"

Crowley nodded -- and stirred, fire in his eyes. "Aziraphale! We're... We're like the actual kings! We get to marry people, so if we say we're married, we're married! Isn't it wonderful!" He said swooningly and looked at Aziraphale as if the last couple of days hadn't taken place.

"...yes. Yes, we can - but *when you have eaten*. You do understand you have a body requiring normal sustenance, don't you?"

"If you say so," Crowley turned very agreeable and wasn't it a worrying sign?

Dao landed, a little way off from everyone else, and Aziraphale immediately put his hand on Crowley's head, feeling for a fever. "Sit down!"

"I'm sitting!" Crowley pointed at Dao with both hands.

"On the ground!"

Crowley felt very old but insisted on sliding down Dao's wing to the ground

Q"You are not helping," Aziraphale chided the dragon, who made a noise that could have been laughter, and then curled a wide circle around them both. 

The knight had rations on him (having learned the hard way), and dropped down to make a quick fire. He pulled his cloak off, and threw it around Crowley's shoulders, then started to get the food sorted. "You are a very naughty not-king."

"I thought I was rather kingly... Wasn't I?" Crowley asked accepting a bowl of soup -- and gulping it down. "Hm... Was hot. Can I have more?"

Well, it meant he wouldn't be eating too much himself, but that was fine. He wasn't that hungry, not with his nerves so high. He cuddled in, and offered his bowl, and some of the bread rolls. "Very kingly. But you are naughty. Now, can we talk work very briefly, and then agree it's off-limits for the rest of the day?"

"Sure..." Crowley melted, the soup, Aziraphale's arms and exhaustion finally -- finally! -- claiming their victory. "Whatever, angel, just ask..." He slurped the soup and briefly dozed off on Aziraphale's shoulder

Well. Not yet, then. Aziraphale pulled the cloak around him some more, and frowned up at Dao. "You need to take better care of him, you know. And yourself. I shouldn't be the responsible one around here."w

Dao pretended not to hear. 

Aziraphale brushed red hair back, kissing his brow and making sure the new not-king settled properly. He would let him sleep, but he wasn't ready to rest himself, just yet.

Crowley napped a little, then something in his dreams screamed at him that he fucked up royally, no puns, and he woke up with a groan and headache.

When he felt the flail, Aziraphale startled, clutching him harder to his chest. "Oh, my dear, are you alright there?"

"I fucked up. Royally." Crowley said and rubbed his eyes.

"Well, as the new unking, you should do everything royally." He nuzzled him, and ran his hands over his arms. "You didn't. You did run out on me, but you seem to have done a rather good job. And you might be pleased to hear we have a few ambassadors from outside the palace, ready to help us sort things. So you can calm down a little..."

"Oh, the fancy kinging... As my fellow unking, you're doing just fine yourself. I... I thought of what you said about... Well, everything you said. You talk a lot, you know? And..."

"And?" Aziraphale tilted his head, blinking curiously at him. "What?" He was trying to not-talk now.

"Well... I... I tried... Very badly. Like a fucking unking that I am to do something about what scared me most, which is ... What I... Went to do. And apparently screwed up. As I do. Do we have more soup?

"We have no more soup, but we do have bread, and some fruit." Aziraphale ruffled Crowley's hair to stick the wrong way. "You just... went a little too far, too fast. And... and it's my fault, for being so - so - *me*. I was - I was just... I never wanted to be 'king', either. But I - I just - I wanted it to be right, so we could go off together..."

"Same here, angel..." Crowley swallowed a bread roll whole without a wink. "Go off together..." He said dreamily. "Sounds great... And I was right, you make a magnificent king, and you don't like it." Do you think we can sleep somewhere?"

"No, I don't like it. But I think we can get things working, and then we can have our freedom." He slowly rose, stretching out, and then offered his hand. "You could sleep on Dao, as I take you back to the palace. Find us a little cottage just outside... I'm sure anyone would happily put us up..."

"No. Your bed. You had a point about beds... Not in general, but I want more time in yours..." Crowley kept talking, climbing up Dao's wing and settling there.

"Then yes, happily, my bed." He jumped up behind him, and cuddled him into the dragon's neck. "Actually, no. *Our* bed. Our bed. As you will be my husband, remember?"

"I'm your husband alright. We're unkings. We're unjoined in the unholy unmatrimony." Crowley giggled, and some of Dao's heads joined him revealing a very silly side of Dao indeed.

"So... does that mean when I get you back to our bed, we'll need to unjoin again?" He put his hands over his beloved's thighs, and squeezed them. "Because. You've been gone for days. And I've forgotten your touch."

"Oh, if I need to remind you of any of my... " Crowley looked at his hands, a bit lost. "Appendages. I can." He nodded. He could swear all of Dao's heads rolled their eyes which was terribly dangerous up in the air in the dark.

"Yes. Absolutely. You need rewarding for your hard work, and I need it for mine." He nipped his earlobe, and made sure Dao got them as close to the window to his room as possible. Though he rather suspected Crowley would barely make it to the bed. He got him to the sill, and towards the bed. 

"Come on now, husband-king-to-be. Get in our bed. It's time you let me make up for all the snuggles you stole."

"Stole nothing," replied Crowley and collapsed on the bed fast asleep and snoring.

"No. Absconded," Aziraphale corrected, and pulled Crowley's shoes and socks off, before coming in to cuddle his bony rear. He'd get his revenge in the morning. And then some.

* * *

Crowley did not do the lengthy talking part, which was fine, because Aziraphale could do enough for both of them. Once the main decisions were done, he was off to do the parts he preferred. It was, of course, always about compromise. 

When they only had to do little things, and everyone got to work on what suited them most, it made the workload much more tolerable.

Aziraphale hung around after the end of the meeting with Eve, as the others filtered off to do their particular things. He felt... pretty good. He folded his hands over his belly, lacing his fingers together. "Well. I think that was a success."

"You know... your father never appreciated just how good you would be at this." 

"Possibly, but then, I hadn't been really drawn to it in the first place."

"No. But it is a shame you weren't the one who took over. But then you might not have met Crowley..."

And the thought of that was impossible to handle. Aziraphale juddered from head to toe. "Well, it all worked out in the end."

Somewhere in the distance, Pepper was heard yelling at Adam. Again. It was reassuring, in a strange way. 

"I think I'm going to track him down," the knight said, pushing his chair back from the table. "Before he gets up to too much mischief."

"Him, or you?"

Which was really the question these days.

* * *

Crowley dedicated himself to turning the slums into a lovely district with gardens, parks, schools and practically every good thing. All the talking he had to do concerning the poor and the weak, he found himself doing, and passionately enough to convince those who had the skills and the means to achieve what Crowley demanded. 

Dao took to Pepper, of course, and the old dragon had enough of tricky mischief left in him to shamelessly play with children. 

Beelzebub was terrifying and beautifully so. 

But above all Crowley was still his frantic, manic, overly energetic self, stupidly in love, as unkingly as they made the unkings, although he must have been the first one. 

He would drag Aziraphale to the woods down South, and they would spend a day, and so far, never any more, walking, helping Hastur and Ligur with the prime numbers, swimming in cold lakes and eating whatever Crowley would find to please Aziraphale. 

Crowley quickly stopped mentioning going off and building a cabin. He didn't feel at home in the palace, but Aziraphale's bedroom was home enough.

***

Aziraphale rode Alexandria down to the usual spot he'd find his husband, and he kissed her nose before letting her go off to play. He walked through a few groups of people who vaguely knew him, and politely said hello, then he snuck through quieter paths until he found the blur of red and hands. 

"My dear? Do you have a moment, or should I come back in a while?"

"Shut it!" Said Crowley, mostly to himself but nobody wanted to argue with the unking anyway. "Yes, angel." He stood up and waited for Aziraphale to speak, a crease on his brow and his foot bouncing and sending his entire body into the dance of a mad slinky.

"I wondered if you might be able to delegate your duties for a while... with enough notice, of course?" He offered the calmest smile he could.

"What's wrong, angel?" Crowley steered his husband to the side.

"Nothing whatsoever, except for the part where I need more of you than I currently have." His eyes were gleaming with something.

"Of... Of course. I'm sure Pepper can take over. Or Beelzebub... Beelzebub would scare the stones into buildings!" Crowley chuckled. "Is... Is there something more I could do for you?"

"You could hand over operations and then come with me." Aziraphale had the most shit-eating expression now.

Crowley turned around and told Beelzebub who fortunately happened to be nearby that they could continue. Everyone in the room swallowed nervously. Crowley looked back at Aziraphale. "Yes?"

"Come with me," Aziraphale echoed, and whistled Dao closer.

Crowley rather dumbly followed.

Aziraphale got astride their dragon, and when Crowley was almost seated, Dao rather impishly bounded a few steps before launching them upwards, flying close to a group of children to waft them with backdraft. 

When they were high enough up, Aziraphale did a little wriggle of his own. "I'm taking you for our first... well. Holiday. Eve is going to make sure everyone behaves while we're gone, so you're not to think about anyone but us while we're gone."

Crowley made a series of indescribable noises consisting mostly of consonants. Then he said:

"O... Alright... Holiday... Yeah... Aren't we supposed to... Strive to achieve justice and suchlike? I'm not complaining! Just... Getting a lot of... Conflicting messages here..."

"Crowley. Justice and suchlike do not need our constant attention. And you will feel much better if you spend time for yourself, as well. And also, when Eve and Beelzebub need a break, we caretake, too."

"My dear husband... even a king who rules alone doesn't spend all of his time working."

Crowley rolled his eyes, so did about a hundred of Dao's heads. "Angel. You can't just... Toss me around things. Do this - don't do this... No pleasing you!"

"Would you rather I let you down and went off alone?" Oh so light and airy. "It's easily done. It's not like I spent weeks organising the perfect break for you."

More incomprehensible consonants followed. 

"Whatever you say, angel. I'm at your fucking service!" Grumped CrowleyHonestly, you tried to be nice, and this was what you got. Dao was not impressed, and when they did land, he basically threw them both, before launching up to a tree. 

Maybe it wasn't the best cabin in the woods, but it was theirs. Which he'd had built for them. And arranged their break together. It was close to a brook, from the sound of running water. Trees cleared around, with no obvious path except by dragon. A little garden, part ornamental, part functional. 

Aziraphale stood, eyebrows raised. And not at all (read: very) nervous about his husband's opinion.

"You... You... Built me a cabin! Here! And by the brook! Oh angel..." And maybe Aziraphale counted on being snogged or even buggered but Crowley just fell to his knees and cried.

"Darling... did I do it wrong? I tried to find the best carpenters... oh... my dear, is it not okay?" He clasped his hands to his face in distress.

Crowley cried louder and even began to wail.

"Crowley!" 

Dao roared. How had he bonded to the two biggest morons in the kingdom?

"Yes, I know he's upset!" the knight snapped. "Look, I - I - you were so upset about the palace, and - and I wanted to show you I do want this, too, and - Crowley, please would you stop? I don't know what to do when you're like this!"

Crowley made a heroic effort of stumbling up to his feet and wrapping himself around Aziraphale in the most glorious and embarrassing manner. "Ssssooo perfect, my angel... You... Built us a home... I love you so much! And a garden..." Crowley finally snogged Aziraphale, with tongue and too much mouth.

Oh thank everything - he was happy. Aziraphale gratefully received the attentions, and made sure he grabbed hold of his very perfect rump as they noisily appreciated one another some more.

"Are we... Are we here for long, angel?" Crowley whimpered, mildly oblivious to everything else.

"That was rather the point. Extended breaks here, when there's periods of relative stability. And we can also come here each night if we want to, or leave it for when we want to completely escape... it's meant to be our home."

Crowley then fell to the ground again and returned to his very important business of sobbing.

"I'll put the kettle on, then," Aziraphale said, wiping his own cheeks on the back of his hand. Sometimes you had to just let Crowley be. And also, he would rather like some tea.

Crowley remained sobbing outside. He had never had a house to call his own, let alone an Aziraphale to call his own, and now he had both, and their dragon chuckled and sobbed up there... Crowley couldn't take it and he absolutely had to. So he straightened up, sniffled, wiped his tears and followed Aziraphale into... Their house. He collapsed again by the door.

Aziraphale placed the teacup and saucer (complete with biscuit) within reach for when he was ready, and sat down near the generously stacked bookshelves. (Which had more than a few books on prime numbers, amongst dragon lore. And maybe a few recipe books too.) 

There was space for more, too.

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  Aziraphale, Crowley, and Bentley


End file.
